Have Faith
Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.
Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. Mark 6:3-6
Once I had to do a presentation at work in front of my peers. I had done this presentation multiple times in front of customers and perfected it to where I was nearly flawless. However, for some reason, I was unusually nervous. The reason was that in front of the customers, they knew me as the expert who was sent by the company to teach them about the software. Dazzling them with my humor and knowledge, customers marveled at the presentation. However, my peers knew me BEFORE I had become this polished presenter. The sense of their critique with each comment weighed heavily on my mind, and the moment one of them corrected me on something, I thought, “Oh boy. Here we go. The impending doom is to come.” Nonetheless, the presentation went on, and it went well. However, my feeling afterward was different from it was before my customers. The reason was that many of my peers to a degree still saw me as the nervous new hire that often came to them not knowing answers to questions they knew like the back of their hand. Was this the story I told myself? Would I ever get past that prior reputation? As it turns out, yes, I would. There were people who had seen me grow over the years, and most importantly, they had faith in me as my wife always had.
Are there parts of your life that still haunt you? This is a prevalent question particularly to those who have had their life transformed by giving their life to Christ beyond the teen years. However, this could very well apply to anyone who grew up in church as well. Most of us having a full understanding of God’s grace know we are forgiven of our past, present, and future transgressions if we are following Him. However, no matter how mature we are in our journey of faith many of us may still be in this dark place of the people who knew you from long ago and do not believe you are this new person in Christ. If you were like me years ago, one person who did not believe it was always the person in the mirror. The thing you need to know is you may not ever stop hearing those voices that believe you have not changed. But God believes and always did. And you can too if you just have faith.
God has always believed in the Born-Again version of you who would do great things in His name. The other day, I had an enjoyable conversation with a member of my small group. He mentioned the story of Jesus going to Nazareth, His hometown. We discussed how Jesus had done all these amazing feats and miracles, and yet, because His hometown still saw him as ‘just a carpenter,’ Jesus was only able “to place His hands on a few sick people and heal them.” This is still an amazing story to me because not only the negative reaction of the people to Jesus but also Jesus too was amazed. The question that crossed my mind is was the all-knowing God really amazed? As my wife and I often will say to each other when one of our children does something that defies rational logic, “Seriously?” The key word in this whole passage is the word unbelief. As we look through the life of Jesus, He performed many miracles, and if we look closer, it is not just Jesus involved in those feats. For example, in Matthew 9, we see a woman with a problem. Note how this problem is solved:
Just then a woman who had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding came up behind him. She touched the fringe of his robe, for she thought, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”
Jesus turned around, and when he saw her he said, “Daughter, be encouraged! Your faith has made you well.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
You see, our faith has a significant impact on how much power Jesus has. Put another way, if we are to truly experience the power, presence, and miraculous acts of Jesus, we only need to have faith and believe.
God always sees us for who we could be and never who we were. In fact, God prepares our past so that when the time was right, we would both know who He is and choose to follow Him. Not everyone makes that choice to follow Him, but as I mentioned recently, He will find someone else if we do not make the choice. So, whatever holds you back from being that person God envisions you to be, whether it is others who see you for who you were or yourself who cannot see past your previous mistakes, it is time for you to embrace this as “An Elsa moment.” Let it go! Let it go because Jesus has your back. What things have held you from fulfilling that which God has already promised you? How can you find comfort in God’s plan for your life? My prayer is that we embrace the beautiful person God intends us to be … if we just have faith. Amen.