What'd You Say?

So, our discussion this past Tuesday was a great transition from our short series on having and fulfilling a vision for your life (according to our past posts) into our new series on faith for your life. Dayton took us back to our example in Genesis and noted how, even though God had made His promise to Abram perfectly clear, Abram had to show a sign of acceptance in order for the promise to come to pass. When he showed that sign of surrender to God's plan, everything changed (see Genesis 17).

The first thing that changed was Abram's name; from Abram, meaning "great father", to Abraham, meaning "father of many nations". The very first thing God did was give Abraham a reminder of His promise to him. Every time anyone called for Abraham, he would hear the very thing that God had promised to bring into his life. In the same way, the very first thing we have to change when we step out in faith about anything is what we say about it, and about us. Chip has mentioned before how science has proven what the Bible already shows us -- our own words have a direct effect on us, much greater than the words we hear anyone else speak. We have to speak what we want for ourselves (our vision) instead of what we don't want to happen or what our current circumstances are.

Dayton had this great comparison of our words to the pixels on a television or computer screen -- in the same way that all the different pixels may be distinct but combine to form the whole image on the screen, so our words, maybe from different situations or times, combine to form the complete picture of our lives. We have to specifically choose what we say since it could affect the color, shape, clarity and vibrancy of our lives on that "screen".

That's why its so important to focus on the good things in our lives and the good things we expect to have happen (again, our vision -- see how easily this ties in?). A big part of the faith process is talking about those things; it's faith that takes those words and turns them into reality (Hebrews 11:1). It can word for the negative just as easily as it can for the positive, which is why we have to make a conscious decision to focus on the positive. That's not to say that we're supposed to walk around in our little bubble and pretend that everything's hunky dory all the time, but we should realize that our final outcome is not based on our current situation, but rather on what we say about our current situation.

Hebrews 10:23 tells us to "hold fast the profession of our faith", which is to continue to speak what God has given us instead of what we see in our surroundings. Dayton gave us a great example in a story of Willie George and how he dealt with his daughter having to go through a potentially life-threatening and life-altering surgery with very little advance warning. He said that Willie focused only speaking God's Word about his daughter's healing, health, and life, and every time thoughts came to him about fear or death or other issues, he would counter them by speaking God's Word out loud. As a result, she became one of only a few people to come through the surgery with complete and speedy recover and no side effects.

Willie's decision to speak out faith instead of the fear that was trying to bombard him had another effect also. He was talking with his wife after the ordeal and mentioned the faith fight he had been in, and she pointed out that because she saw him calmly professing faith instead of being agitated or fearful, she took that faith to heart and was able to have faith herself in the good outcome that God's Word promised. Because she saw him not giving in to fear, she chose not to give in either. The story is a big reminder of how our actions affect those around us, and how we can draw people closer to God and His promises by choosing to draw close ourselves.

We have the vision that God's given for our lives in our hearts and our minds (and hopefully written down somewhere, like Dayton's been telling us to do.) Now we just need to call it like we see it.