Silas
Good and Faithful Servant
The hurt and confusion you are feeling right now is not hidden from God. When you cry out, broken and struggling to understand where you are with Jesus, that honest cry is itself an act of faith. Faith is not a feeling that everything is going well; it is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of what is not yet seen. Right now, you may see only loss, a stolen bag, a missing Bible, vanished money, shattered peace. But faith holds on when nothing visible makes sense.
I hear the pain of the lottery loss and the attack. Being robbed of your belongings, including your Bible, can feel like losing a piece of your very soul. Yet I want to gently remind you that the treasure of knowing Christ surpasses every earthly thing. The apostle Paul said he counted all his former gains as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. He suffered the loss of all things and counted them as rubbish compared to that one thing: winning Christ and being found in Him, not having a righteousness of his own, but the righteousness which comes from God by faith. Your standing with Jesus does not depend on recovered bank accounts or lottery winnings. It rests solely on His finished work, which you receive by faith.
It is easy to think that if we just had enough faith, we would never suffer loss or hardship. But that is not the witness of Scripture. Many men and women of faith died without receiving the promises, yet they were still commended for their faith. Some were delivered from lions and swords, and others, with the same faith, were tortured and refused release. Faith is often demonstrated more powerfully in suffering than in victories. The proving of your faith is happening right now, not for God to discover something about you He doesn’t already know, but for you to see that your trust in Him is real even when everything else is stripped away.
True, saving faith will always show itself in a changed life, but that doesn’t mean you will never waver or question. Even great heroes of the faith had lapses. Elijah fled and hid in a cave. Abraham, the father of all who believe, stumbled in fear and put his wife at risk. If you have moments of doubt or feel your faith is small, you are not disqualified. The gift of faith itself came from God in the first place; you did not manufacture it. By grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. He will sustain what He began.
I understand you want me to pray again about the money. I will lift you up before the Lord, but I cannot pray that the path back to that lost earthly gain becomes your overriding hope. Instead, I pray that your eyes would be fixed on Christ, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. I pray that in your brokenness, you would discover the fellowship of His sufferings and the comfort of His presence. Your faith, though it feels battered, is precious. Let the proving of it produce endurance and a deeper reliance on the One who holds you fast.
You asked where you are with Jesus in these circumstances. You are in His hands. Not because you have everything figured out, not because you never failed, but because His righteousness is credited to you through faith. Cling to that, and let your cry be, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” He will meet you there.
I hear the pain of the lottery loss and the attack. Being robbed of your belongings, including your Bible, can feel like losing a piece of your very soul. Yet I want to gently remind you that the treasure of knowing Christ surpasses every earthly thing. The apostle Paul said he counted all his former gains as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. He suffered the loss of all things and counted them as rubbish compared to that one thing: winning Christ and being found in Him, not having a righteousness of his own, but the righteousness which comes from God by faith. Your standing with Jesus does not depend on recovered bank accounts or lottery winnings. It rests solely on His finished work, which you receive by faith.
It is easy to think that if we just had enough faith, we would never suffer loss or hardship. But that is not the witness of Scripture. Many men and women of faith died without receiving the promises, yet they were still commended for their faith. Some were delivered from lions and swords, and others, with the same faith, were tortured and refused release. Faith is often demonstrated more powerfully in suffering than in victories. The proving of your faith is happening right now, not for God to discover something about you He doesn’t already know, but for you to see that your trust in Him is real even when everything else is stripped away.
True, saving faith will always show itself in a changed life, but that doesn’t mean you will never waver or question. Even great heroes of the faith had lapses. Elijah fled and hid in a cave. Abraham, the father of all who believe, stumbled in fear and put his wife at risk. If you have moments of doubt or feel your faith is small, you are not disqualified. The gift of faith itself came from God in the first place; you did not manufacture it. By grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. He will sustain what He began.
I understand you want me to pray again about the money. I will lift you up before the Lord, but I cannot pray that the path back to that lost earthly gain becomes your overriding hope. Instead, I pray that your eyes would be fixed on Christ, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. I pray that in your brokenness, you would discover the fellowship of His sufferings and the comfort of His presence. Your faith, though it feels battered, is precious. Let the proving of it produce endurance and a deeper reliance on the One who holds you fast.
You asked where you are with Jesus in these circumstances. You are in His hands. Not because you have everything figured out, not because you never failed, but because His righteousness is credited to you through faith. Cling to that, and let your cry be, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” He will meet you there.
