Recently, Glennis and I walked down to a creek that is part of a large river that flows into the Puget Sound waters and eventually, the Pacific Ocean. It’s been the time of year where salmon make their run from the ocean to their original birthing places upstream. Salmon spend most of their adult life in the ocean, when they reach maturity and are ready to spawn; they begin their journey up river. As I’m sure in countless other places along their journey, we saw how the salmon had already been through a gauntlet of fisherman lined up in a continuous row for over a mile just off the mouth of the river. They were standing waist high in the river, with fish nets and fishing poles, eager to bring in a catch.

On our walk further upstream, we watched as the salmon had to negotiate and overcome a series of rapids and smaller waterfalls. What impressed us was the determination and will of these fish; to never give up no matter how difficult the obstacle they faced. We watched them make attempt after attempt to jump a waterfall. They never quit, they circled around and tried again until they made it. We’ve learned that after surviving a grueling journey back to the place where the salmon are born (sometimes a distance of 1000 miles & 7000′ in elevation) the fish will select a mate and begin the spawning process in shallow, gravelly water in the upper reaches of the river. Shortly after their eggs were laid the salmon would die.

“Speak to the earth, and it will teach you; and the fish of the sea will explain to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this?” Job 12:8-9

God has a plan and a strategy to fulfill in every one of His creatures. He supplied the salmon the drive and instinct they need in order to make their long difficult journey home. In a similar sense, God knows our nature and has put eternity in our hearts (Ecc 3:11), He wants us to seek Him while on this earth and has given us a blueprint for finding Him. Jesus tells us the way to having eternal life is by dying to our self-life in this world and living in Him.

 ”I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains [just one grain; it never becomes more but lives] by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest. Anyone who loves his life loses it, but anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. [Whoever has no love for, no concern for, no regard for his life here on earth, but despises it, preserves his life forever and ever.] If anyone serves Me, he must continue to follow Me [to cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying] and wherever I am, there will My servant be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him” Jn 12:24-26.

God has promised us that if we die to our life in this world He will give us life eternal. As we learn to lay down our will and our ways for His ways we will begin to see that when we let go of willful ways we are actually more alive spiritually than we were before.

Oftentimes, we don’t see or feel that we are more spiritually alive, we ask God to show us how the principle works. If we pray for God to do something for us and He has already done it, do we really believe that He has done it? If we are unaware of His work, we think He hasn’t done it and we don’t depend on it. We have not moved our expectation out of the spiritual realm by faith into the physical.

A great man of faith, Manley Beasley, put it this way, “When we ask God to do something on His side (of heaven) that He has already done positionally, we are not asking to get into the room we are asking to get out of the room we are already in.” He goes on to say, “We need to ask God to open our eyes to see that God’s done it and I already have it by faith”. We become a hindrance to our own prayers when we ask God to do something that He has already done. Our prayers should be “Lord, open my eyes to see what I have in you so that I can accept it, and believe it, and experience it.” This is the essence of having a faith expectation, believing and trusting God, even if we do not see it.

God is pleased with our faith. He has already prepared a supply according to our need (and He knows our true needs, not just our wants). If we are Spirit-sensitive we will see God’s provision by faith every time we have a need. Often times, our circumstances are critical and we don’t see any way out of our crisis. This is exactly where God wants us, in the place where we cannot deliver ourselves; having to depend on Him. In this “tribulation journey” we are challenged to spawn spiritual growth and become strengthened in His grace, expressing with a confident resolution that “If God is for me, nothing shall be against me”. 

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.