The situation is sensitive and a bit confidential, also very frustrating. I went to Nairobi last week. I had to solve some governmental issues that have really been frustrating me. In a way, pulling me down and distracting me from what I am supposed to be doing here.

I’ve been asking God to teach me faith. And in a way, I’ve been experiencing God in a whole new way. He has been teaching me faith, but the road to understanding has been rough. I feel like I have a rope tied to my feet and I am being dragged behind a car with my body just bouncing off the bumps in the street. When the car stops, I find that I am covered with scrapes and wounds. When we ask God to teach us something, He does but in ways we don’t expect.

I asked God for favor and for one person in the government office who I could trust. I asked God to close doors that needed to be close and to open the ones that I needed to walk through. I asked God to protect me from corruption.

As I was walking tours the government office, a particular office that when entering, raises much anxiety deep within me, I noticed something that I’ve never seen before. It was a water fountain. Well, I’ve seen it before, but never working. The sound of the water falling was so tranquil and calming. Even though I was already late for my meeting in the government office, I stopped, overwhelm by a peace that truly passed all understanding. And in that moment God spoke ever so clearly to my heart. It was as if He was reminding me that I get so much in the rush of thing, in the business of things, in a task mode, that I forget to stop and enjoy the beauty and the things that He created. In that moment, He also reminded that me that He is with me… always. I forget that a lot. Especially when I am trying to do things on my own, without Him. After pausing at the fountain for a moment, I continued walking to my meeting, but this time the anxiety and fear was gone, replaced with peace and hope and a true understanding that God, my God is in control.

I spent a good part of the day in the offices. When I left, I had hope, I had direction, I knew that thins were going to be ok. I also realized that sometimes faith doesn’t mean just sitting back and doing nothing. It means that even in our faith, we have to take a step, to take an action.

The next day I had to return to the offices again. I took the same path at the same time as the day before. But this time the water fountain wasn’t working. I paused to look at the still pool of water. “Was it really working the day before?” I asked myself. Now, even in its silence, I was reminded of the presence of God I felt the day before and once again, felt that same peace and presence.

I left that office on the second day knowing that it wasn’t about the issue I went to solve; it was about God working in my heart and teaching me faith. It was only that He chose this really hard path for me to walk in order to learn faith. At least to understand a bit more than I did before.

I’m reminded what James says in chapter 2 verse 17; “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”

I have to return next week to Nairobi, again to the same offices, hopefully the news will be good and I will be able to close this chapter and start a new one.

I ask God that His grace and mercy and His Spirit will be ever present with me, knowing full well that it is I, myself who makes the choice to acknowledge that He is with me…

Labels: faith