Faith Is the Victory

Faith Is the Victory

Outward circumstances that inject themselves into your life prepare the way for faith. Your way through these circumstances will be the mirror in which men can see your inward life. Your words and actions are the outward manifestation of your inward state. Other people’s lives and actions create circumstances—like cloth in a loom—through which your life shall run like a golden thread. These circumstances are your way through life. Now your inward life is to be manifested outwardly so that the outward can testify of the inward, and that by the conviction of faith people can partake of the glory of the inward life.

You can overcome in all circumstances in and through Christ. The circumstances shall never overcome you. Your own impotence, when confronted by outward circumstances, will draw you closer to God. You will fear if you compare the difficulties with yourself, but if you compare them with Him who has all power in heaven and on earth, your faith will increase, and it will lead you, victorious, through everything. Faith does not take obstacles into account because it reckons with Him for whom nothing is impossible. Taking obstacles into account is a sign of unbelief; unbelief testifies of pride, which always leads to defeat. The one who doubts makes God a liar. Unbelief results in despair, dissatisfaction, and loss. Unbelief causes your foot to waver; faith increases your strength. Unbelief transforms your heart into a valley of tears, whereas faith transforms it into a valley of praise. Your dissatisfaction makes you impatient, and impatience seeks faraway places. When you suffer defeat in your circumstances, you are dreaming about victory in other places. Your circumstances cannot be blamed for your dissatisfaction; you are dissatisfied because your heart is not wholly for God. Madame Guyon says that whatever plagues you is rooted in your own heart and not in your environment. The person who is completely at rest in God fills the place God has assigned to him triumphantly until God leads him further. A man of understanding has faith and confidence; with God he goes through everything. Precious metals are found in hard rocks. A tested faith is better than gold.

Dissatisfaction with circumstances is dissatisfaction with the cross. Dissatisfaction with the cross creates futility of mind. Your thoughts are desperate to find a way out; their hope is a deception, their joy a false expectation, and their peace is like a fleeting shadow. Futility will finally oppress such a soul with the heavy burden of deception. The way of unbelief is strewn with defeat.

The person who seeks light beforehand over his way does it because he is dissatisfied with walking in blind faith in the present moment. He is anxious for the future and would rather control God’s thoughts for him. He lacks confidence in God and is restless in his mind because of uncertainty. We must put faith and confidence in God before light over the future. We must be fully at peace and rest in the knowledge that our way is in His hand. We need no other clarity over our life than doing the things that God puts before us. Faithfulness cannot be manifested before the time, but when it is manifested in the fullness of time, God is glorified. Because of unbelief, anxiety is to attribute folly to God by doubting His faithfulness. A soul devoted to God does not look ahead to the future with anxiety, but with glad expectation of new manifestations of God’s goodness and faithfulness; therefore such a soul will always face the future with thankfulness, knowing that its veil will be rolled up into the advancing present moment. To be sure, for the soul the future is darkness, but in God it is filled with a radiant glory. Therefore he will see only light in the future’s darkness.

For the God-fearing, outward circumstances are the entrance to an unselfish, active, and divine way of faith, whereas for the ungodly they are a way of self-indulgence. Your relationship to God determines your way through life.