Faith That Imagines Victories

God wants to change our terminal thinking to eternal thinking.

For example, at Lazarus's tomb, Jesus comforted Mary and Martha that this sickness did not lead to death. Yes, Lazarus physically died, but he was not spiritual dead such as those who are outside of Christ. To Jesus, Lazarus was asleep because life didn't terminate at death.

Only through a renewed mind can we perceive what the natural mind can not understand. I Corinthians 2:14 says, "The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit" (NIV).

In Mark 5:39 Jesus said a similar thing about a young girl who died. Those who were weeping in the house ridiculed him. How many things in our live appear quite dead? And our prayers become terminal much like our hopes and dreams. Unbelief is nothing short of fatal thinking for it limits the scope of what God desires to do through us in the face of difficulty.

And then there is a Thomas whose thinking is grounded in facts, reality and what can be touched and handled. These are the people who can only think in black and white. There's no color in their imagination. What can be touched, handled, seen or tasted is evidence. They are the concrete believers. To them imagining an abstract victory is foolish. They can’t imagine the Red Sea parting and the enemy being swallowed up after God makes a way through a wall of water. But God did just that for the Israelites who could not see a way out.

Beloved, God wants to deliver us from fatalistic thinking and instill faith that looks past the mountains to seeing the victories God has in store for us.