Child, where is your faith?

It's 4 months through 2018 already? Did I accidentally step into a Tardis and wind up here? Nope, I definitely went the linear way through time. It was a very slow and difficult process known as nursing school.

I found that I could not write while in nursing school, even on our two week breaks in between semesters. The negativity and anxiety would have been bound to show through my words, both of which are not of Christ. It was a daily battle to keep positive and to defeat anxieties. I never knew I had such anxiety problems, but nursing school can do that. 

When I began in January 2017 I was 99.9% convinced I would not make it. I was not smart enough, I was not disciplined enough, I was not experienced enough, and I was not old enough. Oh how God proved me wrong every single productive night of studying, every single day of clinical in which I received positive reviews, every single exam I made the impossible score I needed, every semester when I passed all my classes, and now at the end of it all when I have completed all my courses and am due to graduate in May. God did it every single time to every one of my needs. For a whole year. For a whole (approximately) 56 exams. 

The fascinating aspect, is now is the only time God has answered no to a prayer. My personal goal was to have a nursing job by graduation. It is a realistic goal, it happens to about 50% of the graduation class according to one of our advisers. Despite my 4 interviews, and 8 applications, no job offer. It was tempting to have my faith rocked by this. How like a jar of flesh to forget all God has done so far and have a long long cry drenched in self-pity, instead of  just grabbing my Abba's hand in total confidence trusting He has a perfect plan. 

The goal of this season is to not become like the Israelites when they reached the promised land. Moses sent spies into the land to scout it out. Upon their return the spies reported, "It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. The land... is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height... and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers.." (Numbers 13:27-28; 32-33). In response the people "raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night." (Numbers 13:1).

God's response to their doubt was to consider it as despising Him, and God called them out on their unbelief despite all the signs and desired to punish them with pestilence and disinheritance (Numbers 14:11-12). God took this lack of faith seriously. Any time God punished in the Old Testament I take heed. Yes, due to Jesus' gift I will never be disinherited, but God still has the same grief over the sin. God must be grieved over my lack of faith.

After my pity cry, and a couple days of moping around feeling sorry for myself and my dashed plans, I had the epiphany while at a Bible study that I have so much to be thankful for. I have a degree, I am employable, I do not have a family depending on me, and I have parents who can take care of me until I find a job. I have absolutely no needs at the present time. God is being faithful to His promise to provide for my needs. Only my pride has needs, and that a need of the dead man not of the new creation.

How comforting in this post college season is the verse Philippians 1:6:

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

In this time I must never forget Isaiah 45:2, which has sparked my confidence in courage since I went to Nicaragua and the verse became endeared to me. God promises that: 

I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. 

It has never been more true then now. I must defeat the doubts that claim God has abandoned me. For as Psalm 27:10 says, even if my father and mother abandon me, God will not. Such a love God possesses for me! 

God has done so much for me. God has done so much for people I know. Every Christ follower I know has at least 1 or 2 testimonies to the marvelous works of the Lord. His Word itself says He is faithful (Hebrews 13:5), and God does not lie (Hebrews 6:18). My proper and God pleasing response in this season is the below quote:

God is on His throne, God has plans, and God will do those plans. I know this with all of my heart. Through disappointment, rejection, doubt, self-doubt, weakness, trials, storms, and mistakes, I know God fulfills His plans. He will do this in my search for a nursing job in the crazy competitive world that is Houston's graduate nursing pool, and He will do it for you in your season and in your trial. It may seem like it is out of your hands, that can be of benefit, that leaves room for God's hands.

My last verse I want to share to help bolster your faith is Ephesians 3:20-21 which says:

 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.