FAMILY AND LIFESTYLE
 
May 22, 2008
Is your shield up?

LIFE IN THE MIRACLE WORLD

By Malita Wamala
WEEKLY OBSERVER

I have been having quite a journey with God about the status of my faith.

And I thought I had faith, but when He ministered to me through people about how my faith in Him on certain matters was faltering, I started doing something about it.

First, I had a nasty dream in which a dead man from a mortuary was chasing me. Usually when I have such nightmares, I like the fact that even in my dreams I take charge, rebuke the demons, invoke the Word of God and the dream usually ends with me on top of things.

This particular dream, the only thing I was doing was run for dear life! In fact when I tried loosing the blood of Jesus, the demon rebuked me and that is when I took to my heels. I woke up in a sweat, wondering what that was about! I was too shaken to even say a coherent prayer, which was strange for me.

A couple of days later, the Lord told my sister my faith in Him was too low, which is why even when I got attacks in my sleep, the enemy triumphed. Taking her to Ephesians 6, the Spirit ministered to her why the Bible says in verse 16, “Above all, taking the shield of faith…” There are no victories in spiritual battles when that shield is lowered.

Yet I thought I had faith. I confessed it each day, but God sees our hearts. I guess He was seeing mine shaking like a leaf!

I have dedicated more prayer to restoring my faith.
That week, in the lunch hour fellowship a preacher from Kenya put it more elaborately for me: There is faith, and then there is faith.

What Abraham had was faith, and what Job had was faith. But it was not the same kind of faith.
The faith Abraham had was the kind that obeyed God without question. God wants us to trust Him blindly if He has pronounced Himself on anything, the way Abraham did. But look at it this way; would Abraham have stood if God had simply taken Isaac away the way He did with Job’s children?

Job praised God when he lost his cattle and children. He said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” when his body was full of boils and sores. That is faith. Yet Job too, would probably never have pulled off what Abraham did, had God ordered him to sacrifice his children at an altar.

God tests us differently because He best knows what we can handle.
I have been thinking about these two men of God from the Bible and decided if they could do it, so can I, and certainly so can you.

Nothing is impossible with God. Lift up your faith no matter what direction things seem to be taking.
Faith is your shield and when it is up, it quenches the fiery darts of the enemy as the Bible says. In the face of adversity, confess positively, believe what God said about you and tell the storm about your God as opposed to telling God about your storm. That wears out the enemy.
But when faith is down, whatever the devil hurls your way hits with a thud.

Read Hebrews 11 and like me, work on your faith. You may think you have faith but if the faith you have puts limits on God’s abilities, then it is not yet faith.
Read about Abraham and Job, then pray for that shield of faith.

malita@ugandaobserver.com