"Cassandra, where is your faith?"

Last week's sermon hit me where it hurts - the need to work as a community instead of insisting on doing everything myself.

This week's sermon also hit a sore point - not having enough faith that God is going to finish what He started. Our new pastor preached from Luke 8.

Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth.

But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy.

And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm.

And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.

The pastor talked about the traditional interpretation of this passage. "Where is your faith?" The pastor said that we, himself included, usually think of this passage as a reassurance that God is ruler of the winds and the waters. God is all powerful. And that's true!

But the pastor pointed out another application of this passage. Jesus asks, "where is your faith?" Why would He ask this? Because He told the disciples that they would reach the other side of the lake! When Jesus says that something is going to happen, it will. When He and the disciples set out in the boat, Jesus said that they were going to go over unto the other side of the lake. His Word is sure.

This message applies to our adoption. "Where is your faith?" God gave us reassurance that we are going to adopt. When we first started praying to determine if adoption was God's will for our lives, He reassured us that it was. One morning, when I was opening up my Bible to read that day's Psalm, my Bible fell open to Isaiah 54:1-3.

Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.

Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;

For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.

As an interesting side note, I'm typing this out of a different Bible than the one I was reading that morning. Isaiah 54:2 is circled in this Bible. I first marked this passage years ago. God is faithful.

If God has reassured me along the way that adoption is His will for our family, where is my faith? Why do I doubt His plan for our family?

Last week we started a fundraiser, feeling overwhelmed that we need just over $10,000 in one month in order to continue our adoption. In the last seven days, we've been blessed with over $1,600 contributed to our adoption account. God is good. He has promised that He will finish what He started.