Taxing God’s Faithfulness
April 11, 2021
I had to stop myself, the other day, mid-prayer praising God for His faithfulness in answering a minor, but major to me, prayer request. My request of God: please move in the heart of my tax accountant to return my calls. Calls! Plural! It’s tax season of course, and even though the April 15th filing deadline has been moved to May 17th this year, I needed some information and I needed it ‘yesterday’. Soon after asking God to nudge my tax accountant, I did indeed receive a return call! Again, it was a minor request in the grand scheme of things I could request, and have requested of God, but this call was important to me and I attributed its happening to the faithfulness of God answering my prayer!
However, I stopped my praise once I realized I was equating God’s faithfulness to the fact that He granted my request. What if He had not granted my request? Would that render God unfaithful? Is God’s faithfulness determined by whether or not He answers my prayers in the manner I desire? Is His faithfulness determined by whether or not He turns situations and circumstances to my favor?
God’s faithfulness cannot by defined by my perception as to whether or not my circumstances or events of my life work out in a way I would describe as favorable. God is faithful-trustworthy, true, and dependable-even if my requests of Him do not turn out as I desire or think they should. God is always faithful to His own character and He will never deny His character, otherwise He would become unfaithful!
Many examples of God’s faithfulness exist in Scripture, however, the greatest example is His faithfulness to His own Word. Both the Old Testament and New Testament echo the message that all God has recorded for us in His inspired Word may be trusted.
“Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.”- Joshua 21: 45
“All your commandments are faithful;”- Psalm 119: 86
“…your word is truth.”- John 17: 17
Yes, God is faithful, even if my tax accountant never returned my call! God is faithful even when my circumstances are difficult and do not appear to work out as I think they should. God will never become unfaithful, and He will bring to pass, in my life and yours, that which will work together for His glory and our good (Romans 8: 28)! God is faithful all the time!
For the word of the Lord is upright,
and all his work is done in faithfulness. Psalm 33: 4