23 Jul Trials, Tribulations, and Unshakable Faith

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Hi! My name is Julie Ann Paulson, and I have had the privilege of working at Mosaic Church for more than ten years. I don’t do a lot of stuff on the stage, but I get to do a lot behind the scenes, and as anyone who has worked in a church and been behind the scenes will tell you, there are all kinds of trials and difficulties that come your way for all kinds of reasons! I have been blessed to see God bring Mosaic Church through so much into the amazing place it is now.

But, you should know that I haven’t always considered it “pure joy” when trials and tribulations have crossed my path, nor has my faith always been strong.

Though I was raised in church and gave my life to Christ one summer at Vacation Bible School, in my teens I walked away from God. I was done trying to be a good Christian. I knew that walking away from my faith was the wrong decision, but I felt like I could handle my life just fine without God. Needless to say, I found out I was wrong!

In 1997, after being married for five years, I got pregnant with my son. I was so excited to be pregnant and wanted to have a baby more than anything! I expected to be pregnant nine months, deliver the baby, and become a mother. However, at 20 weeks I went into preterm labor… and that was the first time I prayed in a very long time.

At 27 weeks my water broke and 28 weeks my son was born. Babies aren’t supposed to be born three months early, and I was angry about this turn of events. Feeling helpless, I started negotiating with God. God, please let my son be okay, please let him live, if you let him live I will raise him in the church and I will teach him about you. At that time I turned back to God, but my faith was very small.

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus is talking to his disciples and replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

So with faith the size of a mustard seed, I returned to my walk with God. I felt a lot of guilt and shame for walking away from Him. But I soon learned that even though I had given up on God, God had never given up on me, and actually placed people in my life to pray for and pour into me even when I wasn’t aware. Many prayers were answered and after two months in the NICU my son was able to come home. But although God was faithful and had answered my prayers, I didn’t immediately keep up my end of the “deal”.

A few years later someone from the church that I grew up in and had gotten married in called to see how I was doing. They said “We haven’t seen you in church for a while and wanted to know if we can pray for you, or if there’s anything we can do for you?”. That’s right, they hadn’t seen me – I hadn’t stepped foot in a church since I was married almost nine years earlier!

But that simple phone call was all it took to remind me of my promise to God. The next Sunday I took my son, then nearly three-years-old, and his newborn sister to church for the very first time. I’m happy to say that from then on my children were raised in church and attended Christian schools (that’s another story filled with answered prayers and miracles for another time). They both committed their lives to Christ, have incredibly strong faith and I thank God for them both.

Since returning to my faith in 2001, I’ve experienced many trials, and these trials have produced greater endurance. Personally, for me, last year was overflowing with trials – my son had major hip surgery, we moved my daughter to college, and I had neck surgery to replace two discs. But I can see that God has used all of this to mature my faith and to create something that has become unshakeable.

So, perhaps the greatest thing I have learned, and what I want you to think about today is this:

The amount of faith we have should not be dependent on our circumstances; instead, our faith is dependent on the character of the One who is both beyond our circumstances, and in it with us in our circumstances. Our faith is dependent on the nature and character of God.

Is He good, or is He not? We all have to decide.

I had to make up my mind, and I have decided that God is good.

I have seen over and over again that God is faithful, His character is flawless, and He will never leave us or forsake us, never!

I absolutely love it when I’m going through something and a favorite hymn bubbles up in my heart. I know I’m a little “old school” (I did grow up in a denominational church, after all), but I love it when I hear hymns like “Great is Thy Faithfulness”, or an old Sunday School song like “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!”, and recently I woke up with “Jesus loves me” in my head. When these songs bubble up from my soul I know that Jesus is with me. I can literally feel Him working in my heart and perfecting my faith in Him. I know that even the hardest things are possible with Christ. In John 15:5 Jesus tells us “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I remain in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

I know that 2020 has been full of trials and tribulations for all of us. However, I hope you will stop today and think about how God has and continues to bless you. Truly take a close look at the many prayers that have been answered, and how He has been faithful in your life. I also want to encourage you to reach out to that person that God has placed on your heart. We are not meant to go through life alone, and having brothers and sisters in Christ is a tremendous blessing. Although we can’t meet in person right now, we can still reach out and let people know we are thinking about them and offer to pray for them.

My prayer is that God will meet you right where you are today and that you will feel His unconditional love for you, in any trial, in any tribulation, and yes, especially in this crazy, mixed-up year we call 2020.

Many Blessings,

Julie