A Faith of a Different Color: Honest Lessons on Trusting God in Real Life

By Michelle Merrin

Do you ever struggle in your faith or find it difficult to trust Gods sovereignty, grace, or purposes? Is it sometimes a battle to rely on God and rest in him in every circumstance of your life? If so, you are not alone. And author Michelle Merrin believes that these struggles are often ordained by God in order to help deepen your understanding of and dependence upon him.

Openly sharing her own experiences of moving from a simple and easy faith through difficult circumstances that produced a different kind of trust, Merrin uses a transparent and practical Bible study approach to illustrate her strong belief in both the power of Gods Word to transform lives and the need for Christians to be honest in their relationship with God.

Studying A Faith of a Different Color alone or with a group of fellow believers can help you navigate your own set of life circumstances that demands a new level of trust in God. Regardless of what the path ahead of you involves, you will be encouraged to let God complete the work of faith that he began in you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490896489

Michelle Merrin

Michelle Merrin has always enjoyed writing but feels especially blessed to be used by God in this season of life as an author, blogger, and speaker. She is passionate about God’s Word and how it touches our daily lives through the Spirit’s work. Her writings, including her first book, A Faith of a Different Color, and her online blog, Faith Meanderings, discuss the Christian walk in honest language and apply the Word in practical ways to real life. She regularly leads women’s Bible studies and has mentored several younger women. Michelle and her husband, Ron, have two grown sons and recently began the wonderful journey of being grandparents.

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Copyright © 2015 Michelle Merrin.

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Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, THE LOCKMAN FOUNDATION.

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from The Amplified New Testament, copyright © 1958, THE LOCKMAN FOUNDATION.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-9650-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-9649-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-9648-9 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/28/2015

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Lesson 1 ~ What’s Faith Got to Do With It?

Lesson 2 ~ Trusting God’s Word

Lesson 3 ~ Trusting God’s Sovereignty

Lesson 4 ~ Trusting God’s Thoughts Toward You

Lesson 5 ~ Trusting God’s Grace

Lesson 6 ~ Trusting God’s Purposes

Lesson 7 ~ Trusting God’s Timing

Lesson 8 ~ Trusting God’s Protection

Lesson 9 ~ Trusting God Through Loss

Lesson 10 ~ Trusting God Through Changes

Lesson 11 ~ Trusting God’s Silence

Lesson 12 ~ Trusting God’s Provision

Lesson 13 ~ Trusting God’s Blessings

Afterword

Notes

Preface

I’ve wanted to write a book for a long time now. I’ve thought and re-thought what it would be about and what it would look like for what seems like an eternity. I’ve written down little bits, taken notes, and made plans for over twenty years. All of the ideas were tucked away and prayed over, saved for someday. Several times throughout those years, God confirmed to me that indeed I would write a book sometime in the future. Finding his perfect timing was the key… and so I waited expectantly.

But this is not the book I planned to write. In fact, it’s not even close. The subject matter is completely different, and quite frankly it’s a book I never wanted to write. I certainly never wanted the experiences that have allowed me to write this book. But it’s the book God planned for me to write.

I’ve known for a long time that God’s ways are not the same as my ways. I’ve even been able to accept that on a fairly regular basis most of my life. You see, faith was always easy for me. I’m not exactly sure of all of the reasons for that, but I came to the realization at some point that faith was a gift that God had given me. In fact, I believed with incredible certainty that faith was one of my God-given spiritual gifts, and so I gave him all the credit for it. It wasn’t that my life had been so easy that faith was not an issue. As you will read in the pages ahead, I had faced many challenges in life; and God had grown my faith in numerous situations throughout the years.

But, in the midst of one particularly challenging and long-term trial, I reached a point spiritually that I had never been before… a place where faith was not enough (or at least MY faith was not enough). As God and I wrestled for months and the enemy did his very best to destroy me, I faced more and more places where I had never been before. And, just when I believed the struggle was finally over, the months turned into years. The darkness was at times overwhelming, and I have to admit that the enemy had many victories. But he did not win the battle because God did not allow him to. And, through the interaction of God’s Word with my experience, I now know things about God and the life of faith that I didn’t know before. Or at least I learned how to move the things I knew about God and the life of faith from head knowledge to heart knowledge—the kind of knowledge that really makes a difference every day. This book is about sharing some of those truths with you and letting God use my experiences to minister to you. I decided to use a Bible study format because I believe in the power of God’s Word to transform lives whether studied on our own or with a group of other believers. This book is suitable for either.

Maybe someday I’ll still write the book I originally planned, but for now this is the one God has given me. I am not an expert; God works in each person uniquely, and I only know what he’s done in my life. But my prayer is that he has directed you to read this book for a specific purpose and that his words through me will be exactly what you need to hear right now. I started praying for you when I started writing this book, and I am still praying for you as you read it. One thing I know for sure: God works in ways you and I can’t even imagine, so I am confident that he has brought us together at this moment in time for his perfect purposes. To God be the glory!

Michelle Merrin

2011

Acknowledgements

My wonderfully patient and supportive prayer warrior husband, Ron—thank you for encouraging me to write, for always believing in me, and for always allowing me the space to become what God intended me to be through every stage of our life together. You can still make me laugh after all these years. You are a true blessing, and your constant love is an amazing gift from God.

Scott and Brad, my precious sons—it is a profound privilege to be your mother. Our honest relationship and your commitment to walk with God on a daily basis bring me great joy. Thank you for your encouragement and prayers for this project.

Laura—the newest member of our family and my only daughter so far. I am very grateful for our relationship and the challenge of a fresh perspective within our home. You are God’s gift not only to Scott but to our entire family.

My parents, Leonard and Margo Williams—you laid the foundation for my faith and provided the atmosphere for it to grow. Thank you for your example of a faithful marriage and your desire to walk with God throughout your lives. I miss you, Dad.

Ginger—your unconditional love has made a huge difference in my life. I can always count on you to listen intently, validate me, and hold me accountable with your challenging words. I always look forward to our stimulating conversations and am very grateful for your honesty, your prayers, and the gift from God that you are to me.

My dear lifelong friend, Karen—what a precious gift God gave to me that first day of 7th grade band so many years ago! Thank you for your constant encouragement and support and for providing a covering of prayer for me in this endeavor. Your role was absolutely essential, and I am truly grateful.

My other partners in prayer for this project, Randy and Cathy—thank you for joining me on this journey! I am confident that your prayers kept me in step with God’s Word as I wrote.

Our new church family, who provided a safe and Biblical environment where God could do his work of healing in our lives and spiritually feed us through difficult times.

Tom Barwick, my youth pastor through most of my junior high and high school years—I can still remember your insistence on defining faith in practical terms that made sense to a teenager without sacrificing an emphasis on the equal importance of truth and distinctive Christian living. You made a difference in helping me to connect all the dots.

My first Religion professor at college (a Mahayana Buddhist)—God used his extensive knowledge coupled with a lack of Biblical faith to teach me about the importance of faith and the role it plays in my spiritual walk.

My unconventional freshman English professor, who believed in my ability to write and encouraged me to pursue it—God used the obvious absence of absolute truth and all of its ramifications in his life to teach me to love truth and value it above all else.

Authors and books that have had a significant impact on my developing faith:

Eugene Peterson—He is my favorite; and (although not equal in either knowledge or experience) I feel as though we are kindred spirits (after all, we did graduate from the same college!). I am always anxious to read the next book.

Beth Moore—Get Out of That Pit, Praying God’s Word

Katie Brazelton—Pathway to Purpose for Women

Rick Warren—The Purpose Driven Life

Charles Colson—Loving God, How Now Shall We Live

Pete Greig—God On Mute

J.I. Packer—Knowing God

Michael Card—numerous songs and writings

Lesson 1

What’s Faith Got to Do With It?

E verything in life is about faith and trust. Some who are more science-oriented than I am might disagree. They would tell me that there are certain things that can be proven and therefore do not require faith. But even science is a collection of theories that must be believed. And, although many theories are now considered to be truth in the twenty-first century and many scientific theories have been proven to be explanations of how things are or how things operate a majority of the time, they are still theories developed by man and subject to human error. Hence, they require faith and trust.

We can apply this idea to the familiar example of a chair. Every time we sit in one, we expect it to hold us up. We expect this based on past experience with chairs, the law of gravity, the ratio of our weight to the size of the chair, etc. So we say we can be certain that the chair will hold us up. But we can never be completely certain until we sit in this particular chair on this particular day whether we will remain upright or end up on the floor.

What are some other examples of everyday living that require faith? What about the days, the months, the seasons? We have come to trust in these patterns and even predict the weather, the sunrise, the sunset, and other aspects of the natural order with relative certainty. Yet we cannot cause these things but can only have faith (based on past experience and scientific research of these phenomena) that they will continue to occur in the same way in the future.

Another example is relationships with other people. All relationships require trust because each of us can really only control our own actions. We marry based on trust that our spouse will remain faithful, and we share our feelings and thoughts with our friends based on the degree to which we trust them to guard the information and thereby uphold our trust in them. A relationship without faith and trust is not a true relationship; it lacks the basic ingredients to make it function properly.

Most Christians are familiar with Hebrews 11, also known as the faith chapter. The first verse of this chapter describes faith as the fundamental fact of existence… the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living… our handle on what we can’t see (MSG). Other versions use such words as assurance, conviction (NASB), being sure, certain (NIV), and proof, perceiving as real fact (AMP). According to this verse, faith is an essential element of all of our lives; and it is also very near to fact or truth. Of course, that depends on what we place our faith in.

Our trust in anything is based on what we know about that thing and what our past experience has been with it. Trust is also affected by the experiences of others and the stories they tell us about a particular thing. Most people came to believe that the world is round based not on their own experiences but on the experiences of the explorers who were willing to venture into the unknown based on faith alone. What we now know to be a fact (after seeing photos from space) was for many centuries something that had to be taken on faith.

Likewise, our trust in God is based on what we know about him, what our past experience with him has been, or the experiences of others. The more we know about God, the stronger our faith in him becomes. As we discover and experience his character traits that are unlike the character traits of anyone else we know, we begin to have a perspective on faith that resembles the words from Hebrews 11:1—a firm foundation, assurance, certain.

But not everyone’s faith will look the same. I have found that God teaches each of us different parts of himself at different times and in different ways. Where we are in the walk of faith and what our faith looks like directly relates to what God is teaching us through our experiences and his Word. The one thing that ties all of us together in our faith is its foundation in truth, which along with God himself is unchanging.

The object of faith is truth as revealed in Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God’s Word. And, to those of us who exist after Christ’s incarnation, truth is also revealed in God’s written Word: the Bible. Our faith is directly related to how well we know God through our relationship with Christ and our knowledge of Scripture.

When Christ was here on earth, he challenged us to have faith like little children. When I was first married, I taught preschool in a church daycare for a couple of years. After my own children were born, I continued for several years to teach preschool Sunday school classes. What I liked best about teaching that age was the unwavering trust that these little ones placed in me simply because I was their teacher. And, as they got to know me better throughout the school year, they trusted me even more as they learned that I was trustworthy. They believed everything I said to be the gospel truth, and for the most part they obeyed my rules without questioning them.