I Lost my Faith, But I found it! (Written by Troy Nwosu)

At the age of one, there wasn’t much I could say about life.I didn’t even know what “life” was. Nothing held me down, but everything brought me up. I felt freer than the skies and swifter than the wind.

At the age of five, I was just starting school. My parents told me about this man that lives in the sky and watches me do everything. They also said he does magic. A magic man living in the sky? I thought they were playing a trick on me. They tried to convince me that he was real, like they did the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. But I didn’t really believe them.

When I was in middle school, I went to church with them, and prayed to the man in the sky, they called God. We would go to church every Sunday hearing about what God does in our lives. I believed that everything the pastor said was true and God would do a lot of good things in my life. But he lied. After going to church, my entire life went down hill. My parents lost alot of their money from giving it to the church and never gained anything back from it. We were struggling, but that is more than an under statement, we were hopeless,but they still prayed and prayed that God will give us all our money back and help us back on our feet.

In high school, I completely lost faith in God. I went to church, but didn’t pay attention. I prayed, but didn’t speak. I didn’t confess anything to that God of theirs. I didn’t care about anything anymore, just about making the most out of life. I went to parties, drank, did drugs, had sex with so many people it even surprises me. I didn’t believe that one man, a man who isn’t even human, who I haven’t ever seen, touched, or heard can help me out in any way. God wasn’t even on my mind. I didn’t care about him or think about him, I didn’t want him in my life. Looking back on it, it made me wonder how people could worship a man they haven’t ever heard or seen. Some say they’ve seen him. Some say they’ve heard him, and some say they have felt his touch.But I think they’re lying. I think they say those things so people will believe them. I officially turned away from God and had no intention of turning back.

One summer, I was driving back to my house after a party and was hit by a drunk driver. Both our cars were totaled, the drunk driver was dead. I was lying in the street pretty sure I was going to die soon too. I was in so much pain and agony and couldn’t reach my phone to call the police for help. I was hopeless. Nothing or no one could help me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I began praying. I asked God to save me and help me from this. I pleaded for him to keep me alive to keep me healthy. I apologized for everything I have done over the years and how I scolded people for thinking you were real. I looked up and saw a man on the ground with me. His entire body was white, but I couldn’t see his face. He said he was Jesus Christ. His voice made me cry even harder than I was before. He touched my hand and said he will always be with me. Then he vanished.  A few seconds later I hear a police car. The police man stops at my car and calls the police.Within minutes I’m at the hospital. As I’m in my hospital bed, I see the man in white standing by my bed. As scared as I was, I couldn’t move. Prior to this the doctor had told me I’d be paralyzed from the waist down. The man in whitetold me he forgave me and he touched both my legs and disappeared. I could move my legs. Believe it or not, but I could move my legs. I was able to walk, and run, and jump again. The doctors were speechless; they had no explanation for how I was able to walk again. And I looked my doctor in the eyes and told him, it was God!

What I want all of you to take from this is it doesn’t matter who you are, what you think, or where you come from. God will always be therefor you. He may not come when you call, but he’s just in time and loves us all the same.

Time and Chance

Two farmers planted their seed at the same time, same day and on the same ground. One of the farmers harvested his crops before the other farmer, while the other farmer waited a little longer for his seed to mature that he may harvest his crops.

One may wonder why it took one farmer longer to harvest his crops. They may have planted their crops at the same time, same day and on the same ground; but their seeds were not scheduled to take root on the same level; neither were their seeds programmed to bear fruits at the same time. Every seed will eventually produce fruits, but in its own season; and the kind of fruit that will be produced determines the wait period before maturation. Every seed that will produce lasting fruits depends on time to mature and uses every chance to take root for firm anchor.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.

I’ve come to understand that God, throughout history works with time. Time is an important factor if you must ever bear fruits that will last – fruits could be the number of people you lead to Christ through the Ministry God has called you into; or your character which God takes time to build, through suffering, pain and difficulties to help you preserve the blessings He wants to hand over to you; fruits could be the manifestations of God’s glory in your life; but it takes a lot of time and patience for God to mature you. If you go ahead of God before your time you'll die and your fruits will be destroyed; if you decide to take care of things yourself, you'll face the challenges of life all by yourself because you do not have the backing of God. May I also point out, that the process of maturing you differs from another’s maturity process; this lies on the fact that you were created differently, for a different purpose.

At creation, God looked and saw that the earth was without form, and void; he could have created everything in one day, owing to the fact that He is the supreme God and has the power to create everything in one day. Rather, he took His time to ensure that everything that should be created was put in place in an orderly manner, to reveal His glory, and he saw that they were good.

 Genesis 1:4a

And God saw the light, that it was good…………….

The purpose of creating the heaven and all that is in earth was for order, peace and admiration. God took his time to create the world that the things created became a wonder to man and these things reveal the glory of God.

The race does not belong to the fastest, nor does the battle belong to the strong, nor does the wise always have bread to eat, nor does the learned always successful, nor does the one who knows how to do it with excellence stay wealthy; but two factors are responsible for any known success – Time and Chance.

When God predicted the coming of Jesus Christ through his prophets in the Old Testaments, Galatians 4:4 recorded that, but when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law. Between the time God revealed to his prophets about the Jesus Christ and Jesus’ arrival on earth, there were several events that played out, these events were ordained to take place that the Gospel will be spread, events like, building of good roads in Rome through which people could travel (Paul travelled this road for spread the Good News), giving citizenship to non- Romans (political contribution); the Greeks made some intellectual contributions that aided in the translation of the Gospel (bible translations in Greek give a clearer understanding of the scriptures); the Jews contributed through their religious acts and beliefs which made it clearer that salvation was not received by good deeds but grace, amongst many other events that played out before the manifestation of God’s promise. Why did I give a summary of these events that played themselves out before the time was full?

While you wait for the promise of God to be made manifest, there are certain things required of you to put in place through the help of the Holy Spirit, in preparation for your place in life. If you neglect these important events in your life, you'll become frustrated if you eventually make it to your place in life. Certain events must play out to complete the time God chooses to manifest his glory in your life. Between the time of the knowledge of God's plan for you and the manifestation/fulfillment, God has purposed that certain events must play out if you must experience His glory. For example, if I desire to be a medical doctor, the time between gaining admission into medical school and graduating from medical school consists of times of hard work, series of test, research, sleepless nights and intense study; until I commit to a studious life and deny myself the pleasures of the season, I may never realize my dream of becoming a doctor.

One of the key requirements to manifesting the glory of God in His time is living in total obedience (no negotiation, no compromise). A man that commits to an obedient life will not only walk into his glorious destiny in grand style but will be showered with the rewards of obedience.

John 2:3-5

3 The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.”4 “Dear woman, that’s not our problem,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.” 5 But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

 Before Jesus manifested the glory of God at Cana in Galilee, he was conscious of time and chance. At first, Jesus told His mother that his time had not come because there were certain things that ought to be in place but were not in place. His mother knew the secret to manifesting the glory of God in the fullness of time. So, she reacted positively to Jesus’ turn down in order to get him to manifest the glory of God. After she had received that answer from Jesus, she turned to the disciples of Jesus Christ and said to them “do what he says", in other words, “obey him!” One would wonder why Jesus performed the miracle after saying his time had not come. I’ll tell you the reason. Because of obedience, the disciples obeyed the command to fill up the jars with water – that needed to be in place and it was going to take a lot of work. Now, everything was in place for the glory of God to be made manifest, Jesus then turned water into wine that the glory of God may be revealed and his disciples believed him.

Find out what the Lord wants you to do as he prepares you for your place in life and do it with all your might. Everyone has a place in life, it’s very important that you walk with God and be sensitive in your spirit to know what God wants you to do.