Why Having a Faith in God is Crucial

Are you finding it difficult, keeping your head above water in this troublesome world?

Do you feel like you’re constantly pulling yourself up from the depths only to be pulled back down again? Living life like that is exhausting and I am on a personal journey to stop living this way and want to help others do the same. When things don’t go right in our lives, we tend to fall into worldly comforts that we think will help us, however when we let them rule our lives, they can end up killing us. This is exactly why having a faith in God and becoming a true Christian can set you truly free.

[For clarification, a true Christian is someone who has asked the Holy Spirit to come into their life and works to be in tune with what God is saying through His Spirit. I’m sorry to say that only attending church on a Sunday does not make you a Christian. We need to live in a personal relationship with God to find true freedom.]

Let me explain some more…

Firstly as a side note, I absolutely love the way God chooses to explain things to us! The way He explains things to me just makes me laugh a lot of the time, because there is no way I could come up with these explanations on my own. When I was writing the intro to this blog, God brought a certain movie scene to my mind to help explain things. (This happens a lot so be prepared for this in future blogs).

Connecting Harry Potter with our faith in God.

Have you ever seen Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone? Do you remember when Harry, Ron and Hermione get stuck in the devil’s snare? At first, this plant is their soft landing spot, a welcoming friend that caught their fall. However, the roots soon take hold of them, beginning to hold them down and crush them. Hermione, being the knowledgeable young lady that she is, tells Ron and Harry that struggling will only make things worse. They must relax and not fight it. Hermione relaxes and she slides through safely to the other side. Harry then follows her lead. However, Ron is clearly distressed and panics faster when he sees his two friends disappear.

Ron struggles against the devil's snare in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)

I feel like a lot of us react like Ron in stressful situations.

Those times where we get involved with people or in activities and situations that may appear innocent in the beginning, easily earning our trust, but very quickly when it turns into something deadly, we’re trapped, panicking, and can’t find a way out. Ron’s reaction demonstrates exactly what happens when we try to save ourselves. What we need is someone with an unlimited source of wisdom, power and authority. Which is how the name of my blog comes into the story. 

God is our light, and through His power and authority, He can save us from absolutely everything that is holding us down and keeping us in darkness. When God’s light shines in our lives, we can be truly free! And it just so happens that light is exactly the way Ron is able to get free from the devil’s snare, (a perfectly chosen name, J.K Rowling).

With Ron panicking, Hermione knows she needs to get him out.

Thinking back to her herbology class she realises the one thing that will save Ron.

"Devil’s snare, devil’s snare is deadly fun… but will sulk in the sun! That’s it! Devil’s snare hates sunlight” Hermione exclaims.

And with that, she whips out her wand and casts the correct spell. 

Now, ignoring the fact that Hermione uses a spell to bring the sunlight, my point is that when sunlight pierces the devil’s snare, the plant instantly retreats and lets Ron go. In the same way, when we shout for Jesus in our time of panic, we will be saved! (Romans 10:13 NLT). What a perfect illustration of how our faith in God and His light can penetrate the darkness and rescue us. This is one of the many reasons I choose to be a Christian and put my faith in God. But to make things clearer and simpler, I’ll put it like this.

Why am I a Christian?

Because, from my experience, living life with God is 110% better than living without Him.

One of my favourite Christian influencers is Tori Kelly. She is a singer/songwriter with a huge love for Jesus and a truly gifted voice. I love something she said in an interview by Rock Church that perfectly sums up why I choose to do life with Jesus. After speaking from Philippians 3:7-9, Tori says “I want to be like Paul and be able to say all these things that I’ve been able to do, any earthly things, amazing things… blessings, I am so thankful I am able to do what I do. But if all of that went away and disappeared, I would still have Jesus. He is the one thing that I get to have that nobody can take away.”

Tori Kelly being interviewed at Rock Church (2017)

There are too many reasons to count why I choose to have my faith in God. So for this blog post, I will choose to briefly talk about five of them.

1) God helps us through the rough times, He doesn’t take them away.

Something that may trip a lot of people up, is when something goes wrong in our lives, we cry out to God “why this is happening” and sometimes even place the blame on God. If He’s all powerful and the creator of everything, why do we have to go through such horrible things? Can’t He just stop them from happening?

Well sadly, ever since sin entered the world in the days of Adam and Eve, mankind have always been part of a fallen world, which is why bad things do happen. And this is exactly why we need a saviour! God didn’t promise we would live without trials, however He promised He would help us through them. When Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected, He defeated death! This means that any trouble we have in this world, Jesus has the power to help us through it if only we would submit to Him. (John 16:33 NLT).

2) He is constantly looking after me.

I’m not sure how many people can say this, but I have never had a 'full time job'. I still don’t. That’s not intentional, it’s just the way things have worked out. This means that I’ve never had a full time income. And guess what? It’s been amazing! Something I can tell you about doing life with God is that things are rarely ever boring. Because I work in ministry, my life is basically trusting God that if I am in the place He wants me to be, then He will make sure I am provided for. And time and time again, I have seen His provision come through. Sometimes He comes through at the last minute (just to make sure I really do trust Him), but I have never been without anything I have needed.

To help me stay focused on trusting God, I strive to make sure I am putting good spiritual habits into my life. While this is easier said than done, there’s no doubt of how much closer I feel​​ to God when I put these habits into action.

3) I am created perfectly in His image.

Like most girls, I have had a weird back and forth relationship with my body image. You have your good days, you have your bad days. For me, the bad days edge out the good days, where I look in the mirror and I’m not thrilled with what I’m seeing. Most of the time I have to shrug it off and just carry on with my day. And honestly, often I wouldn’t put a lot of effort into my appearance, and I wasn’t looking after myself as well as I should. It was a common question for me to ask myself; am I worthy?

But it’s really only been the past few years that I’ve realised something; I was created by the same incredible God who created the universe! If He put so much thought and detail into the plants and animals that fill this earth, then why wasn’t I doing a better job of looking after the body He gave me?? Thankfully, God has come through time and time again, so that I can now say I am learning to look after myself properly and I am starting to feel better with every day that passes!

4) I love seeing how God works in people’s lives.

Something I have always loved is seeing people excel in their giftings when they let the Holy Spirit guide them. Healings, blessings, miracles are all things that bring Heaven to earth, and the feelings I have while experiencing them are like another level of euphoria! There are a lot of people around the world who are persevering in God’s plan for them, and it’s so exciting to see! I have many people in my personal life, and others in the public eye who I find to be huge inspirations. You can read about a few of my favourite spiritual influencers in the public eye here. But there are so many others who are and can be a huge influence and vessel for God’s truth, and I’m excited to see how they grow in the future.

5) What I consider a weakness, God uses to change lives.

I have lost count of how many times an amazing opportunity has come up where I’ve been asked to speak into people’s lives. Of course I say yes straight away (you guessed it, I am a people pleaser), because I know that God wants to do something in someone’s life. But my confidence level has always been an issue so I would continue to ask God the question, “why me?”.

Public speaking was and still is, so far out of my comfort zone. Not only that but I’m also not a huge fan of the sound of my voice. If you’re from New Zealand, or you’ve heard a New Zealand accent, you’ll know we can sometimes speak with a lousy pronunciation of our vowels. Don’t get me wrong, I love our accent, but when I have to try and speak in front of a group, with everyone looking at me, I get awkward. But hey, when I know God has placed a word on my heart to share, everything works out better than I could have imagined! Whatever you consider your weakness, why don’t you give it to God and have faith in His plan, it’s amazing what you can do through the power of the Holy Spirit!

I have journeyed with God for many years, most of my life actually!

The more I grow, the more He reveals to me incredible things I could never have imagined myself! I choose to follow Jesus because 10 years ago, I had my own plans about how my life would go. But as I trusted God more and more, my life went in a completely different direction to what I had imagined; and I couldn’t be more thankful to God for where He’s taken me. This leads me to my final question. 

Why did I start Gifted by Light?

“Gifted by Light” was in no way created on a whim. Though the idea escalated quickly, I have had the desire to begin something like this in the back of my mind for years. I just had no idea what it was going to look like. But in March 2020, I had an interaction with God so great that everything suddenly became clear. It’s amazing what happens when you get alone with God and eliminate all distractions.  

For years, I thought it would be cool to start a ministry or an organisation, so this idea was always in the back of my head. But in 2020, so many things fell into place that it was undeniable that God was coaxing me to begin what He was planning. Even now, I have no idea to what extent this will go. But I have faith in God that He is going to mould this into whatever He needs it to be. 

The Bible is the Word of God.

This is a book that has an abundance of Godly wisdom and an answer to every problem you will ever encounter. There are countless reasons to read the bible, such as receiving the perfect words at just the perfect time for your situation. My current situation was finding the chosen words from God to be the backbone of my ministry. Thankfully God delivered these words which was the confirmation that I was on the right track with this ministry.

“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” - John 8:12 NIV.

This is the main truth I want people to know, this is how people can be saved. If you’d like to learn a bit more about my ministry ‘Gifted by Light’, you can see me awkwardly introduce it in my first video! Check it out:

This is just the beginning, my friends! Join me on this journey if you would like to learn more about God’s truth through the illustration of movies! If you’re interested in hearing the testimonies of other women, feel free to stick around too! If you made it to the end of this blog post, you have my deepest thanks! I look forward to bringing you more in the near future! In the meantime, I pray your faith in God deepens even further as you continue to seek Him.