Believe

Believe
Wednesday, December 2, 2020 by Zachary J. Hunter

Believe

By: Zachary Hunter

Recently the Lord had me listen to my Christmas music playlist on Youtube. I have a few songs that I enjoy listening to above all others so it’s a fairly small list. This isn’t the craziest assignment I’ve ever heard of from God, so I click it and start to listen. The first song in the playlist is the song “Believe” sung by Josh Groban. If I am not mistaken this is from the movie “The Polar Express”.

I’m listening to the song, enjoying the music when two lines leap out and punch me in the face (LIKE A BOSS!!!!! Cheers if anyone gets that reference). The first line is “We were dreamers not so long ago, but one by one we all had to grow up.” The second is from the chorus, “You have everything you need if you just believe.” With our God there is no such thing as coincidence and there certainly is not here as these lines work together with what God is saying to me.

Matthew 18: 2-4 says this about the faith of a child, “2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” A child is innocent; they do not yet know things like betrayal, cynicism, distrust, etc. These are things we learn as we grow up and become adults.

Let’s go back and look at the first line again, “We were dreamers not so long ago, but one by one we all had to grow up.” When we are children it is easy to dream big dreams, to believe anything is possible. However, as we grow up we lose that belief. Our dreams shrink and we become focused on accomplishing on what we believe to be feasibly possible. Some of us don’t even do that as our needs, like bills, house, car, and family cause us to focus only on gaining income to provide these things even if it means we kill ourselves internally for decades at a job we hate.

A reminder of the second line, “You have everything you need if you just believe.” There is a caveat to this line; it must be belief in God, not anything worldly. It is also dependent on obedience. God is our provider and provides all things for our good. What is required from us is obedience. If God says rest, we rest. If He says work hard at something, we work hard at that thing. What we believe to come about may not happen right away, in fact it likely won’t, but if we believe, ask Him, and are obedient, eventually it will come.

As we grow into adulthood we are taught by the world, by other adults that things don’t happen just because you believe. That is considered to be childish thinking. Our own experiences also seem to reinforce this; we want something, we believe we will get it and we don’t, or at least we don’t right away and by the time we do we’ve forgotten about it. This tells us that belief is worthless because it provides us with nothing and that we must do everything ourselves if we want something.

That is the opposite of what God wants for us. It breeds a self-reliance that does not require Him. We become our own provider rather than God. Some may scoff at what I am saying, citing the childish thinking bit I mentioned earlier. This is why I brought up Matthew 18: 2-4. Jesus himself said that we must become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Those who can do this will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Belief is not just believing for things we want. We need belief that God can turn seemingly impossible situations around. It’s belief that His word never returns empty; that He will do what He has said He will do. It’s seeing him in the midst of all the terrible things happening in the world and in our lives. Without belief we are no different from those who oppose God’s word. In some ways we are worse when we are without belief; because we can see those opposing God fighting tooth and nail for what THEY believe.