When a Mole Hill IS a Mountain

I am relieved to report I am surviving! I have more peace today than I did a week ago. Not all the time…yet. But more of the time, and you know what? I’ll take it! I am rejoicing…still. Even when I don’t feel like it…still. And I am in awe of God’s goodness and faithfulness. He heard my cries for help, and He answered, above and beyond the itty-bitty realm of possibility from which I asked. Honesty was risked and friendship restored. Humble love was risked and a child poured out their heart, even the struggles for which I was to blame. Lying bare at the foot of the cross, God covered me. Carried me. Caused me to seek after His plan. His purpose. His ways. And then He gave me more. More of Him. More of His truth. More for my children. The more I was troubled, the more ready I was for anything He had for me. I didn’t care what the truth was, or how hard it might be to receive, I just wanted truth. And He gave. And some of it hurt. It was about me. My shortcomings. My sins. My neglect. My selfishness. My desperate need for a Savior every day. My desperate need for grace every moment. My insecurities. It hurt good, though. The kind of hurt that brings an end to the bleeding. The kind of hurt that marks the beginning of God’s healing. God’s treatment. God’s rehab. God’s deliverance. By faith.

Faith. Jesus says, “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’” (Matt. 17:20). A mustard seed. That’s not very big. My mole hills become mountains, and I wonder what that sliver of faith looks like. Does the fact that I’m struggling mean I have forsaken faith altogether? God shows me the answer. No! Faith isn’t always some catastrophic, life-changing moment when we say yes to God to the accompaniment of angels singing the Hallelujah chorus. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith simply as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It is the conviction we have that what we hope for in Christ is actually a reality today. It is the proof we and others need of the reality of what we cannot see. Faith is evidence of Jesus. It is evidence of salvation. It is evidence of hope. It is evidence of grace. Things that happen in a realm undetectable to the bodily eye are tested and proved by our faith. Sometimes it’s faith to do the big stuff God requires, like leave everything that’s comfortable and familiar, and follow after Him. But other times, like for me these last few weeks, it’s the faith to turn to God every three minutes because that’s as long as I can make it before my mind wanders to worry and He has to turn me back to Him.

Regardless of the measure of faith we have at any given moment, we simply must have faith. When we are saved by grace, it is through faith (Eph. 2:8). It is not of ourselves, but God is the one who deals each one of us the measure of faith we have (Rom. 12:3). He moves on our hearts to respond to Jesus with the faith He gives, and He saves us. Based on Hebrews 11, look at what He accomplishes by the faith He gives:

By faith, we gain understanding. By faith, we obey God from a right heart. By faith, the lives of those who have passed before us still speak to us today. By faith, God delivers. By faith, we are saved and can do the really hard things God requires. By faith, we become heirs of the righteousness that is according to faith. By faith, we can obey when we have no idea where it will lead. By faith, we can live temporarily, anchored only to Him. By faith, we can experience the impossible. By faith, we can consider Him faithful who has promised. By faith, we can seek a heavenly country. By faith, we pass the tests we face, even the extremely difficult ones. By faith, we can bless our children and speak of the future. By faith, we can defy evil rulers without fear. By faith, we can refuse position and heritage in order to be who and where God calls us. By faith, we endure. By faith, we see the unseen. By faith, we can do things that have never been done before. By faith, we can experience miracles and deliverance against all natural odds.

Everything is by faith in the unseen. Faith requires focusing on the heavenly. Faith makes the impossible insignificant. Void. Ineffective. Faith gives God all the glory. Faith preaches from our lives long after we’re gone. Faith strengthens others to faith.

The greatest faith truth for me this week? By faith, I can leave everything behind and find the ability to sacrifice even what is closest to my heart. The hard truth? Many times, the thing closest to my own heart is my own self. By faith, I can sacrifice self. That is what is on the alter right now. Me. My desires to control my children’s lives. My desire to have and be their answer. My desire to figure things out so I can fix things for them. My activities and accomplishments that supersede God’s priorities for my time and energy.

Hebrews 11 chronicles the big leagues of faith. The all-stars. Faith’s hall of fame.  Abel. Enoch. Noah.  Abraham. Sarah. Isaac. Jacob. Joseph. Moses. Rahab. Gideon. Barak. Samson. Jephthah. David. Samuel. The prophets. All big players. All simple men and women. Just like you and me in some way. Imperfect. Inconsistent. Interfering. Tempted. Stumbling. Manipulative. Sordid past. Yet, God gave them faith, and their faith is the evidence we need today for our faith.

“Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). Thank You, Lord, for the measure of faith You have given me. I ask You now, in Jesus’ name, please increase my faith.

And I ask You, Lord, please give every person reading this right now greater faith as we become more wholly Yours.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

Trampled by the Truth

A stampede thunders above. Squawking penetrates the air as the fittest survives. If only I was actually in Africa! Instead, I’m settled in my office on a beautiful Saturday morning, visions of peace with the Lord and my morning cup of coffee chased like prey from my reality. The stampede? My children. The squawking? Cries for help as one or the other exerts their dominion over the upstairs bedrooms! The shuffle is on. Big brother moved out several weeks ago, and the girls are surveying their territory. With the wood floors complete and mom and dad back in their own abode, they can now migrate. The youngest, bloodthirsty for her own room, woke with a single mission: get the oldest sister to make her move down the hall, boot out her roommate, and victory! She can stake her claim to her very own room for the first time in her 10-year life. It’s a big day in the Wallace wilderness!

After tuning out enough chaos to complete my morning’s work on Hebrews 11, I open my journal and begin emptying me onto the page in order to be filled by Him and His will according to His pleasure for my day. More skirmishes. Higher pitched squeals. Angry words. Tattling. Are you kidding me? The words pour onto the page: “Lord, please give them your grace and turn their hearts genuinely to You. I don’t know what to do. I know only You can change their hearts. What do I do as their mom? What is it You need me to do in their training and discipline?” He answers. My lack is discipline. As my children have grown, and the rod, in my eyes, has become inappropriate, my discipline has slacked. We revoke privileges and invoke extra chores, but consistently? No. I’ve allowed their hearts to harden in rebellion. The words continue to fill the page. Who was it whose sons died because he failed to discipline? I search the word. It’s Eli, God’s priest.

Eli’s sons “were corrupt; they did not know the Lord” (I Sam. 2:12). When Eli “heard everything his sons did to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting” (1 Sam. 2:22), he confronts them, but he does not discipline them. So a man of God comes to Eli and says, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Did I not clearly reveal Myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house? Did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer upon My alter, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod before Me? And did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?’” (I Sam. 2:27-29; emphasis mine). The consequence was severe: “But now the Lord says: ‘Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. And you will see an enemy in My dwelling place, despite all the good which God does for Israel. And there shall not be an old man in your house forever. But any of your men whom I do not cut off from My altar shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart. And all the descendents of your house shall die in the flower of their age. Now this shall be a sign to you that will come upon your sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die, both of them’” (I Sam. 2:30-34; emphasis mine).

More honesty: “Lord, I don’t want to put my children in danger because I don’t want to discipline. Why don’t I? Because I don’t want to deal with the reactions. I don’t want to face the reality of my own and their depravity. That’s the bottom line, isn’t it Lord? When I discipline, it reveals the condition of all our hearts.” Then it got painful: “It’s not out of love for them that I fail to discipline. It’s out of love for self.” Ouch!

It IS only by His grace that our hearts will change. It IS only by His power that we will do what He desires. Just like Eli, we have been chosen to offer on His altar ourselves as a living sacrifice. How many ways that sacrifice is required! Which more important, though, than for the life and salvation of our children.

And I close with this prayer. If you struggle with consistent discipline, too, join me. If not, pray for those of us who do!

“Lord, give me Your grace to deny self, take up my cross, and follow You. By Your merciful kindness, move on my heart to love You in behavior, not just intentions. Always. Even when it’s hard. Even when it means seeing the truth about how fallen I am and how desperate we all need a Savior every moment of every day. Give me strength to discipline. Give me wisdom and knowledge to know when and how. By Your Holy Spirit, Lord, please give me the power to do it consistently for Your glory and for their good.”

The rumbles, shrieks, and scuffles continue. My youngest hollers from the stairs. She needs help, and her sisters aren’t coming to her aid. I’m tied up and can’t get to her right away. She struggles to carry something heavy down the stairs, crying out as she places herself in a precarious situation. “Elly, put that down and wait for someone to help you. Don’t just keep going and put yourself in danger!” I holler from where I am. Quietly, in my spirit, I hear: “Shauna, put down what you honor more than Me. Don’t just keep going and put your children in danger.”

I hear You, Lord. Thank you. Make me wholly Yours, today, for the sake of my children.

Grace to you.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His