Aloha family! It feels like March is flying and I  cannot catch up! I just wish I could stretch 24 hours to 100. At the same time, I am being reminded that I need to chill, listen to my body and take things easy while I think of the gazillion things I need to do. Lord have mercy!

I posted a vlog on my IGTV  last week. While musing, I mentioned that the presence of faith does not mean the absence of adversity, sickness or disease. Matter of fact, when you begin to exercise your faith, you will be faced with tests and trials in the process to ensure your faith is solidly anchored; not some fly by night ready to crumble muscle.

If you are reading my blog for the first time, welcome! I hope you will be inspired by my testimony to trust God in your life’s journey. I am a believer of Jesus Christ, so my series this month will be based on that belief as a foundation and a spring board.Faith is universal. We all believe in different things and ascribe to certain philosophies. It is a spiritual force, intangible yet visible when it demonstrates its potency. 

Faith in Jesus  is a whole different ‘beast’. Faith is the only thing in the Bible Christians are asked to fight and contend for. It is the only thing that pleases God. It’s the only virtue that yields according to how much of it you possess. Jesus told us, all we need is faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains (Luke 17:6). I took time to google ‘mustard seed’ so you can see how tiny one seed is. Juxtapose it with the image of a mountain. Let that sink a bit. This means if your mountains are not moving, ask yourself if you have ‘mustard seed size’ faith.

My writing today is not to expound so much on faith but to expose a  lie of the enemy. I hear and see  a lot of Christians react in disappointment when challenges come. ‘I pray’ they say, ‘I fast’ they conclude, ‘I give’ they bemoan. ‘It should not be me, my case is different’. When they have headaches, they will not bind the spirit of infirmity. When it’s high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, they will be joined to the hip with their medical providers. A quick pain killer or use of blood thinners will do the trick.

When it’s a cancer diagnosis, they begin to  exercise faith muscles that were never built up in the first place. Dear reader, the same faith that heals headache is the same faith that cures cancer…….Therefore, if you were not exercising your faith for the regular ailments, how will it work when a cancer report is received? I say this because I was once guilty of this.
I questioned God. I was angry, I was bitter. Why will God allow this disease to afflict me?  On the road to healing, certain scriptures began to come alive.

1. God delivers the righteous from ALL afflictions (Psalm 34:19)
2. In this world, troubles, sickness, and all bad things are bound to happen, but I am an overcomer in Christ (John 16:33)
3. Any sickness is a test of faith. I must consider it joy to have my faith tested. It is from the triumph of the trials that I can encourage others. (Jame 1:2-4)

Anyone can suffer a cancer diagnosis. The young, the old, in-utero, rich, poor, clergy, laity, it can happen to anyone.  When it happens to a Christian, blaming and questioning God is not the solution. We surrender to God and ask Him to help the frailty of our faith as we go through the healing process. 

I can still remember the 9th of February 2017. The minute I left the Breast Imaging Center, the first thing on my mind was how I was going to package an offering and give God. I wanted the report to come back as benign cells acting up. That was all I wanted to hear. That was the report I wanted to receive. The Holy Spirit was so angry, I heard Him rebuke me with a very audible voice! ” I am your Father! I am not a transaction! Keep your seed to yourself!” It was from that moment that I began to learn God and my relationship with Him all over.  Every doctrine I thought I knew crumbled like a pack of cards. I had to learn the God kind of faith afresh. 

 
It was obvious that the foundation of my faith in God was very shaky. I did not have the faith for supernatural healing. I was not like the woman with the issue of blood whose touch was more than enough. I was not and I am not ashamed to admit it. However, I had enough faith to ask God to guide my treatment team. I had enough faith to ask God to strengthen me so I could withstand chemotherapy. My faith was enough for that, and it was unto me according to my faith. There were storms throughout my treatment, but my faith was built to the extent that I will not die from treatment complications. As I continue to build my faith, I have built it to the point that I could wean myself off of anti-depressants (another blog post for another day). I am at a place where I depend on God solely for strength. It is no longer my strength because cancer related fatigue is real. I build my faith muscle by picking a verse of scripture, meditating on it and holding to it as my faith is being challenged. It is a lot of work! But it works!

David was able to conquer Goliath because he had killed a lion and a bear in the past. He had exercised his ‘courage’ muscles to protect his father’s sheep. When Goliath wanted to tear God’s people down, David used the same muscles he had built to defeat Goliath.  We all know the rest of the story. 

I hope you have been encouraged by this write up to exercise your faith. Keep at it! The shield of faith defends from fiery darts!

xoxo
OEMA