Learning from Our Mistakes!!

I found this article by Rob Rufus in an NCMI magazine called "One Step at a Time - Building Faith for the Supernatural". The whole article is so worthy of a read and it is wonderful that Rob's awesome material is being written down and published.

One point in particular caught my eye and it is a vital concept for 2008. How do we keep building faith for the supernatural?;

"Keep learning from your mistakes - fail FORWARD.

The twelve disciples had many occasions where they failed to cast out demons and heal the sick, even though they had been authorized and empowered by Jesus to do so. But Jesus came and healed where they had failed, proving the miracle was God's will and that God's first choice was that they did the miracle rather than Jesus! (Mark 9). The good news is that they continued to ask questions of Jesus, growing in faith, until (in Acts 5) we see them doing signs and wonders and healing miracles that were equal to what Jesus had ever done, proving that the new norm for every believer was to do the works that Jesus did.

Disappointment is a disastrous father of theology. It develops heresies and pervasive traditions that lowers and limits the word of God down to the level of your experiences, and unwittingly surrenders to the Spirit of unbelief while masquerading as main line orthodoxy!

If you are to keep growing in faith, you must let God turn your disappointments into divine appointments and elevate your experience up to the glorious unchanging promises of His Word. It is true that the Bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick. But the Bible also says with greater emphasis that it is through faith and patience, that we inherit the promises. Don't give up. Keep learning. A kingdom principle described in Luke 16 says those that can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much.

Don't focus on what is not happening in your life but give thanks to God for whatever He is doing through you supernaturally even if it is every little and soon you will see progressive increase".

I found Terry Virgo's latest "Firstline" unusally depressing this quarter. He shared honestly from his heart but it still doesn't make the truth easy;

"Why then do I feel some disappointment? ... I expected God to break out in power. We have been encouraged by remarkable waves of Holy Spirit breakthrough, but, so far, we've not experienced what could be described only as revival, when the Lord's intense Presence not only refreshes the saints but also overflows from the Church leading to multiple conversions and to the extension of Christ's rule and impact on the culture ... But I did expect revival. I must confess I still long for its coming".

We must tow a careful line between naive triumphalism and cynical disappointment. If we are not living in what the Bible would call revival - then let us be honest to that. But I am challenged by Rob's statement that disappointment is a disasterous father of theology. I have seen two men of God get toppled by disappointment and by hoping for more.

Let's fall forward!