selective unbelief

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of What I Have I Give Podcasts. A space where we give what we have and trust God with the rest. Today this episode is coming from you live and direct from the road. So I'm literally coming back to my road trip right now. So if you hear some road noise that is my bad, but I just had to make sure that I recorded this podcast. It's been on my mind for several days now and I just didn't want the situation of where I neglect to record it or I just say you know why the moment has passed, I'm not going to record it anymore. But I really believe that this episode won't bless you today because it's something that I feel many individuals myself include it struggle with and that is unbelief. So today's episode is going to focus on unbelief but what I call selective unbelief. So I believe that many people experience faith in areas that they are familiar with or areas that they have seen God reveal themselves and has delivered. But in areas that they've yet to see, in areas that you're not familiar with seeing God deliver yet, you struggle with belief in those areas and that is what today's episode is about. So let's just get right into it. My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts as the Lord and my ways are far above anything you could imagine for just as the heavens are higher than the earth. So my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. So I just so hard on to not want to control every area of my life and believe and trust and know that you were born over my life and that's in fact your ways are higher than my way. I've looked at the question that many of us have asked ourselves many times in our lives and we've wondered if all this is true that God's plans are shall speak greater than ours, better than ours, higher than ours. Why don't we trust it? Some of us are still ultra-independent that we are willing to, to that we trust in God, leaving God. But yet we are trying to orchestrate our lives still and not trusting in the process, not trusting that he can do exceedingly and abundantly far greater. He also says that too. And yet we have a police. Recently I was flying off and just as the plane was landing. That's not changed my mind. That is not necessarily totally out of left pocket for me. I've had many dreams of being successful in different ways, real estate being one of them. And I was flying with all these beautiful trees and greenery and I tossed myself. I can own land here. I can have a piece of this property. And then there's always that that little thought that comes into your mind immediately after you have a positive thought about your life or about something immediately those other thoughts, which is creeping and that thought came into my mind for a brief second and said, you don't got about it. He's like, what is this? And then again, the immediate thought of that because I've seen how God has been capable. I've seen how he has provided. I have seen how he has just done miraculous things over my life and supernatural provision. But the next immediate thought was, I believe, saw the progress. And of course, I left that thought and the plane lands very safely, by the way, shout out Delta. Very, very good landing. And I go about getting to my stay and everything and I was getting ready to go up later that afternoon. And as I was getting ready, I was just doing my makeup, curly bangs, I was doing. And as I was getting ready to go out, the only spirit reminded me of those thoughts that I had in here of planning as the airport. And the only spirit question means that lies that you can believe in me for that kind of miracle, IE, provision, being wealthy, being able to own land in a city that you do not have any claims to. But you don't really have trust in me for the one thing you've been believing for for a while now. Which is marriage. And the only spirit says, why is this so easy for you to believe that I can do something like that, but not this one thing that you know you have been denying for. Then I thought to myself, is it because I've seen God do that kind of miracle before? It's because I've seen him perform supernatural provision over my life and just supernatural favor over my life. And I have to yet to see the miracle of the other one or the fulfillment should I say of the other one. And then it got me thinking that I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who has experienced this type of death. I think this could be called as selective unbelief, because I think it's kind of like almost similar to a confirmation bias, right? So if you go through your life, entire life experiencing certain types of experiences and it always ends the same way and you're so used to a certain ending or certain ways that they go, when you see those similar type of experiences again or things that kind of look the same, you automatically want to believe that this is just going to be the same thing all over again. I think this can, the confirmation bias can be positive, I think it can be negative, right? So if the bias that you have positive one, that's good, but the positive, the bias that you have the negative one, then that's not good. So thinking and around this thought, I think about the stories in the Bible. There are many that come to mind, but I'll start first with Sarah. So many of you know Sarah in the Bible who was from previous East Sarah, right? The wife of a throughout or Abraham, father Abraham. And when God first spoke to Sarah and promises Sarah to have a child in her old age, she laughs. Not out loud at first, but internally. To her, it felt too unlikely, too outside of her lived experience because obviously at that point she was old in age and she had not yet felt or known what it was like to have a child to be, to be with child to then have a child. So it was some of this unfamiliarity. And God knew her thoughts and responded in her thoughts to her thoughts and response and says, does anything too hard for the Lord? I think this is similar to my revelation where the Holy Spirit kind of spoke to me and said, why do you believe for this type of miracle or this type of provision, right? A God who can provide a God, you can guide a God, you will protect. But when it comes to love, the revelation of the right person in your life, you like Sarah say, me, this kind of actualization in my life when I've not seen it yet, especially when you've come close. I think that's, now I'm drifting, drifting off the topic here and I'm thinking of Peter. The disciples, Jesus walking on water and they are stunned and they look at Jesus and all of them are like, oh my gosh, they're afraid. But Peter for some reason is not afraid. Instead, he goes like, says to Jesus, call out to me and I know that if you call me, I will also walk on water like you. And so Jesus saw Peter's faith and he called out to him and Peter began to walk on water. Peter had enough faith to step out, but as he stepped out in the faith, a little bit of a wind came and he began to sweat drown and he began calling out to do this in a fearfully and Jesus said basically like, bro, why did you do? Like, what's up with your unbelief? And that kind of reminds me of why I broke my original story that I was saying into this one, because I feel like when it comes to me specifically, I do believe that the plans that God have for me or for good. I believe many of us have this highly level believes that the plans that God has for us are for good. And he says that he will cause all things to work for the good of those who love them. Right. And so we believe that. But then when it comes to the actualization, the realization of that in our lives, if we get to see it, we doubt it. And just like Peter, if a little bit of wind comes, a little bit of being thrown off course a little bit. So you know, things are going good. You're believing God for something. You're believing that he's doing it. And he's actually showing you that direction and you're walking in the right direction. And your heart posture is changing. And the things that Ron just changing, you're believing in God for a new opportunity at work or something. You're seeing yourself getting promotions and seeing yourself having all these things. And all of a sudden, they hire someone else in the position that you wanted to. That you were going for and you're like, well, I guess that is the end of that, you know. And that's like similar to Peter's selective unbelief where he would believe in God that he would walk on water. But as soon as a little bit of wind came, as soon as a little bit of turbulence, as soon as a little bit of, you know, disruption came, he began to change his posture. And I can totally relate to that. I think it kind of looks like faith in one moment and doubt in another moment and through unfamiliarity, one something is unfamiliar to us. And I think God is really asking us to step out in complete faith. Just like you said to Peter, why did you doubt? You were already walking on water. All you have to do is keep going. All you have to do is keep your eyes on me and you would have been good. And I feel like, but that was what the Holy Spirit was saying to me. To step out in complete faith and not be concerned with when things may look like they're going right in one moment and then disappointment hits and then you just lose your faith again completely and you begin to draw up like Peter. I think it's important that we have full faith. That's what God called calling us to do. I think he recognized that we're human and we are going to doubt him sometimes. And we are going to question him sometimes and we are going to waver. But he's really calling us out to that. And recently, you know, I'm going to really highly recommend reading Hebrews 11. And recently the Holy Spirit brought me to Hebrews 11 and just one morning after finishing Bible study, God was like, I still want to talk to you. Like, I think we're not done here. And so I just opened my Bible and I came to Hebrews 11. And that entire chapter is stories from Genesis to the New Testament of stories of individuals in the Bible that had full faith like Ginoch who the Bible said walked with God so much so that he never even died. He was just disappeared. Like Sarah, like I began with, who in her old age came first to an Abraham who despite never seeing the fulfillment of what God had promised him, right? Your people are going to go to this promised land, your people. He's been most of his life wandering. Then most of his life basically like a nomad. He didn't know where he was going but he trusted and believed in God that God was going to fulfill the promise that he said that you will have descendants as much as the stars in the sky. And the Bible would say that Abraham was a father of faith. But even him, he struggled to grasp the full extent of the promise. Every time that his faith would waver in some places, for example, God had promised the promises of the descendants through his son with Sarah and him and Sarah both wavered. And you know the story, if not, go read it. And they ended up having a child with his wife's maid, made it. Rather than with his wife which God had promised. And so that's an example of selective unbelief right there. But I also do understand why the Bible would call Abraham a father of faith because his faith did grow over time. And he was someone who would listen to God. So when God said move, he would move, when God said go left, he would go, when God said go right, he would go. And I can relate to that. But even as he was walking in a space, there were still a lot of times where he wobbled a bit. And again, I think that's something that God, the record of that is like as humans, that we're going to do. But I really do think he is calling us to that expansive faith, that whole, trusting faith, that God can do anything he wills for me, faith. I think it comes from being grounded. It comes from entering our self-sit stories that we've heard of others in our real lives, the stories that we've heard in the scriptures. That it is possible to believe and witness in our lifetime the things that are not yet seen but have been promised. And that's exactly how he grew his 11th starts actually. It says faith is the reality of what we hope for. It is the evidence of things we cannot see. And the belief that though we have not seen them, that they will come to pass, having this type of faith. And I think that God is really stretching me. I do think that it does come from grounding yourself in the examples of faith in our lives. We all know individuals who have had impossible stories of faith where it seemed like there was no hope and then they had hope and got, you know, answered the promises. And I honestly do want to believe that because, you know, the Bible has so many places in it where it speaks to the desires of Mary. And she just speaks to the desire of wanting to, you know, have a Mary, for a Bible says, "It's not good for man to be alone and that two heads are better than one and that iron striped in striped in to fire." And this is throwing out examples that I have right now. Well these are the words, these are the things that I'm holding on to. Trusting and believing that my God is a God who keeps His promises, that He is a covenant even God. Therefore I need to be able to believe and hope for the things in which I have yet to see knowing that if He is a God who has promised it, that He will fulfill His promise. There is a story in the book of Mark about the Father, about demon, possessed boy who the disciples of Jesus had been trying to heal and they were unsuccessful because of their unbelief, how ironic is that. But they were unsuccessful and Jesus comes along and the man admits to Jesus that he is struggling without. And that, but he still need Jesus to heal his son. So he says to Jesus, "I believe but help my unbelief." Again, I know you can do this but I am having a little bit of a doubt. And Jesus, you know, does heal his boy. And that's how I want to think about my God. That's how I'm going to think about it in this way. So I think if you are struggling with selective unbelief right now or selective faith, I think that you can do as one, just like that man that Jesus healed his son. You can start by admitting that you have done. You can start by recognizing that you struggle with full faith. And then you can pray and you can say to God, "Lord, help my unbelief." It's my heart to trust you beyond what I've seen before. Teach me to believe that I can witness the things that I have yet to see. And ask God if you don't know or if you're not aware right now that you have unbelief. You think maybe you do, but you're not 100% sure. Ask the Holy Spirit to expose places in your heart and your life that you put limits on God. Ask the Holy Spirit to say, "Lord, where are the areas in my life where I have placed limits on you where I have not been fully in agreement and fully trusting and believing that you could do exceedingly, abundantly, far greater than I could even ask her, "Magic, what are the areas in my life that I'm not believing that your ways are higher than your my ways, without your plans are better than my plans?" And I believe that the God who loves and wills for us to be transformed and wills for us to live and to the full potential of our being will reveal to us those areas. And so that's what I leave us with today. A couple of things to do. One, admit if you're aware of the areas that you have with doubt. Two, if you're not aware of those areas that you have doubt, ask the Lord always spirit to reveal those areas for you and then lastly, ask God to heal your unbelief. We'll see you guys in the next episode. But what I have, I get podcast. I'm really excited about the next episode and I really hope you'll tune in because it'll be the first episode that I'm going to have a guest on here. And this guest is going to be a really special one to me. It is a friend of mine that has really been a blessing in my life in the last little while. I only get too much into it, but her ministry is a very unique one that I feel like you'll be very surprised to hear about. But I know that it will bless you. So I'm really looking forward to that and we'll see you on the next episode. Love and night.