The Prize
Wanda | February 23, 2009
I had been feeling discouraged over the last few months, maybe more. But just two weeks ago, God showed me once again that His Word was true and that I could rely on it every time.
Our girls were at their grandma’s for the day, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to catch a ride with Dave as he fed cows with his home-built round bale un-roller. After we had unloaded a bale, we headed back to the stack to get another one. As we rounded the top of a hill, the mechanism that holds the bale on, fell back on the base of the carrier. Something had come undone.
After further examination, Dave realized that we had lost a piece off of the winch system. With discouragement and frustration, we tried to walk through the snow on the hillside where we thought it maybe had fallen off. Nothing. Then we got back on the un-roller and began to retrace our route.
I was reminded of the story of the lost coin. (Luke 15:8) The object we were looking for was small in the large picture of a snow-covered landscape.
From deep within my spirit, I then took the smallest step of faith I could muster and was reminded of the verse in Matthew 17:20 that says if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can have authority and nothing is impossible for you. I quietly confessed that to Dave and said I have about that much faith (showing him with my hands about an inch between my fingers). I had almost no faith at all it seemed. As we retraced back to where the incident happened, we watched the snow as the horses trotted through it. Nothing. Dave stopped the team on top of that hill again and got off to look. I stayed with the team. Nothing.
He came back and I offered to look, not having much hope of ever finding it! I started shuffling my feet through the snow as I walked down the hill. Huh… what was that? It felt like a rock that I kicked. I kicked it again but could see nothing. I kicked it again and nothing. For the third time, I kicked and there it emerged… the exact piece that we had lost.
As I returned to Dave with the prize, deep down in my heart, I felt like God had given me a prize… the return of hope to once again believe for something and to have faith that it will happen. That gray, cloudy, windy day suddenly had promise and hope. A new quietness and strength returned and I was once again reminded that God is faithful and He is well able to perform His Word!
I really believe if I had not confessed the living Word of God, we probably would have never found what we were looking for that day. Yet, the Word of God never let me down and He was ‘…ready to perform (His) Word.’ Jeremiah 1:12
God is ready to perform His word. We just have to be obedient to confess it and believe that what we have confessed WILL come to pass!
Matthew 17:20
… I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
Declaration of Faith: My faith is a spiritual force that is alive within me. When I use it, it is like a seed planted at the root of the problem. As I cultivate it (continually believing and speaking the answer), it overtakes and uproots whatever is standing in my way. Even a mountain poses no difficulty for me when I remain stubborn and persistent in my faith. When I tell it to move, it moves. When I tell demons to leave, they leave. When I command an infirmity to come out of a body, it comes out. With the faith that God has given me, nothing is impossible for me.