Authentic Faith

What if life isn't meant to be perfect, but we are meant to trust the One who is?

Been reading this book call "Authentic Faith" since before I went to Singapore...and been very blessed by it. It is written by a guy call Gary L. Thomas...Bought it in KL when I went home for hols the February past and it's the first time I took it out to read it...and the timing is perfect! Sometimes, we can't help but feel that there is this "omni-present" friend who is guiding and directing us even when we don't realise it...

Excerpts from the book:

"In spite of our obsession with instant results, we serve a God whose calendar moves by millenia, not minutes, and who thinks in terms of generations, not seasons. Unless we understand this about God - that He moves in millenia, not minutes - we will never understand His ways with us. Peter is very clear: "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" (2 Peter 3:8). We are obsessed with where we are today and with what's going to happen in the next year, while God's plans for this world often take a long-term view. (pg 38)"
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"Abraham was a sprightly 75 years old when God promised him that he would be made into "a great nation" - a bold promise given to a childless man (see Genesis 12:1-5). A quarter century passed before Isaac was born, and a full century went by before the promise about the land took concrete shape.
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Abraham's excruciating exercise of waiting marks the essence of the Christian life. The psalmist, though full of hope, recognizes that God's blessings do not always come with the speed of a bullet, but rather within the slow, steady approach of a glacier: "I want for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning." (Psalm 130:5-6)...
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One thing is clear: God won't be rushed. Without a willingness to wait, we will be regularly frustrated with God and may become disillusioned with our faith. God never promises us that our present circumstances will always make sense. Sometimes, we'll have to wait until the present becomes the past before what we are going through becomes even remotely understandable...
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This waiting can be debilitating and suck our souls dry - unless it is marked by hope in God. Waiting, for the believer, is not the futile and desperate act of those who have no other options, but rather a confident trust that eventually God will set things right - even if he is not operating within our preferred time frame. "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength," Isaiah tells us (Isaiah 40:31). It almost goes without saying that there is no reason for hoping if we already have all that we want......"

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope...Psalm 130:5