Romans 4:3

Andre von Mollendorff considers what is required to see a turning in our circumstances.

Andre von Mollendorff

I sensed as I sat down to write this article that many people are at a 'crossroads' moment in their lives.

We often reach these landmark moments where we wrestle with ourselves and with life. It is often an uncomfortable place, a place that makes us feel stuck or leaves us feeling confused about our immediate situation and circumstances. It can even bring us to the place of doing intense personal examination and asking ourselves all the hard questions. It is a place that we can often become discouraged in.

In these water-shedding times, it's important to remember not to make hasty decisions, but allow God to take us through the process.

Abraham had some of these moments in His life. He had this amazing promise over His life that He was going to be a Father of nations. The only problem was that they were trying to be a father and mother to just one child, but they were unable to conceive. Not only were they unable, but they had also gone past the age of child bearing. In the natural, everything looked like it was opposite to what God had spoken over their lives.

I love what Romans 4:3 says in the Bible: 'But the story we are given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story!'

What we read in scripture is that Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was his turning point. He trusted God to set him right, instead of being right on his own. Even Abraham had a turning point, a 'crossroads' moment.

Often our turning point comes, when we realise that it's not our next promotion, or another job, or a change of course or another wife/husband, or another qualification that will bring the change we so desperately desire. The turning point comes when we trust God to do what only He can do! The turning point comes when we realise that this is a God-story, not our story! When we realise that no matter how hard we work, how long we try, how smart we are, or what clever plans we make, that it can never match up to what God has in store for us.

God's promises in our lives are way bigger than what we are able to achieve by ourselves. The only way we can walk in them is when we enter into what God is doing for us. We do this by trusting Him. Our trusting God is what sets us right with God, not our efforts and hard work.

Your turning point comes when you don't focus on your weaknesses, your short comings, your failures, or your inabilities and dead areas, but when you trust God to do what only He can do, which is to turn dead things to life, and with one word make something out of nothing. When we stop asking sceptical questions, or dwell around in our hopelessness, but rather plunge into the promises of God, being sure that He will do what He has promised! THAT WILL BE YOUR TURNING POINT!

When we embrace and believe Jesus and the Way He made for us on the cross, we are set right by God and that is a pure gift! It's something we can receive and walk in today.