Motivation Monday – When You Need To Reframe Your Belief
“I am asking you to continue to believe with us. I am asking you to consider reframing your definitions of what you believe about God’s goodness and His ability to do what He wills to do as He calls you to believe afresh in His purpose, His promises and His provision.”
We have just come off a powerful weekend of gathering – both live and online. We are reflecting on God’s blessing, and on how His presence on the weekend erased any doubts we had that we were to gather. WE BELIEVED!
But because we are only human, there were moments where we wondered: is it weird to gather, or is it right?
To be honest, the whole world is feeling a bit weird right now, so asking that question doesn’t bring much clarity. What we did know was that we were to be obedient to what we felt God asking us to do – and that was to welcome women from across the nation to join us in the room and online for Gather Rise 2021 BELIEVE.
And so we did. We talked a lot about Peter – the author of our theme scripture:
Peter had to work hard at believing as most times he over-promised and under-delivered because He was believing for what He thought would be the right outcome, only to find out Jesus had a different plan.
I wonder about you. What needs to be reframed in your belief system about God? Most of the behaviours we choose as followers of Christ flow out of what we really believe about Him. I wonder if many, and even all, of our questions could be reduced to two questions about God:
Is He good?
Is He able?
Is He good?
Yes, yes He is good! We doubt it, but there are too many promises about God clothing the lilies, and counting the hairs on your head, and shepherding you along quiet waters to doubt that His intention is anything but to care for you and nurture you on your journey.
The challenge is when you believe that goodness looks like the absence of anything hard and the abundance of all is easily come by.
YOU NEED TO REFRAME THE BLESSING.
Blessing can look like full nets, a great job, money in the bank, great kids, and good health. Blessing can look like sold out registration at a Gather conference and donors that give over and above.Blessing can also look like a few fish in your net, searching for a great job, kids that need a whole lot of prayer, and physical suffering. How does God view blessing? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We may not receive on earth the blessing that is promised, but we are still in the category of the blessed.
Is He able?
Jesus could have called ten thousand angels to assist Him off of the cross. He could have changed water into wine at more than one party. He could have healed everyone that needed healing, whether they asked Him or not, and He could have overturned the political and religious systems and sat on an earthly throne. He was more than able to all this and more.
But He chose not to. Just because His current answer to you may be, ‘now now’, or ‘not yet’, does not mean is He is not able to do it.
May we be women who choose to believe that God is good and God is able.
May we be women who choose to reframe our outdated definitions of blessings and God’s ability to act and move on His timeline.
At Gather Rise 2021 BELIEVE, we saw with the eyes of our hearts that God’s goodness and ability to move in our midst was more than we could have imagined. HE EXCEEDED ALL OF OUR EXPECTATIONS.
- His voice was heard through twenty-one Gather Voices women who spoke of His participation in their story.
- His voice was heard through Emma Narayanan, Lead Pastor of Avant Life Church in North Vancouver, who asked us to believe with the faith of Hannah.
- His voice was heard through the voices of all of our platform participants, calling up the potential and willingness in every woman to rise and follow Christ, whom we have not seen, yet choose to believe.
- We heard conversations on sisterhood, social justice, racial and generational injustice, on future church, digital church and church for women who are single and want to engage and flourish in local church community.
- His voice was seen acted out in every moment of service offered by our brilliant intern and volunteer host team. His voice was heard in our creative team through video, dance and music. His revelation was given through the stunning worship.
- His voice was heard through Rebecca Doner, who reminded us each moment that we were not only welcome, we were wanted.
I am asking you to continue to believe with us. I am asking you to consider reframing your definitions of what you believe about God’s goodness and His ability to do what He wills to do as He calls you to believe afresh in His purpose, His promises and His provision.
I believe in you!
Cathie