<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dianne Michelle Wagner

Do You Believe What God Says?

I trust you guys can hear me since I heard you guys say happy Sabbath back.

I think it's because it's 1 of those things that I wonder if we actually pay attention to or if we actually believe it.

I was reading a verse and a humorous or at least interesting thought came to my mind.

The thought that struck me was, well, sometimes that city has to burn in order to see it.

Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father which is in heaven." So what is this about good works?

What on earth are these good works that are supposed to give glory to God?

What righteousness do I possibly have that isn't just the light and righteousness of Jesus?

In other words, no matter my story, whether it is a reflection in the quiet of my own thoughts or sharing it before people such as yourself, everything should be pointing towards the righteousness and love of Jesus.

That is the essence of spreading the gospel and this is what I hope will come across in my testimony today.

There is a well-known astrophysicist and self-proclaimed agnostic.

His argument against the proof of the existence of God is that God is considered to be all-powerful and all-good.

And when he looks at the hideousness that is this world, he fails to see how a God who is all good and all powerful would allow such bad things to happen.

This may seem like a familiar thought to many of you.

I won't delve into the idea of freedom of choice and how God taking away that choice isn't truly goodness or love.

But I want to explore today the idea of God being all good.

And more importantly, do we actually believe that He is good?

Bow your heads with me for just a moment of prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you so much for the blessing of the Sabbath, time to get together and worship you.

Lord, please help me to completely disappear during my testimony today.

Please help my words to be your words and that somebody here will be blessed by what it is I have to say.

We thank you so much for loving us and for being with us here.

My mouth has literally never been so dry.

Do you believe what God says about himself?

To lay some groundwork for my testimony in medical school, I have to back up a few years, about 28 to be exact, to a defining moment in my Christian walk.

When I was very young, I guess about 6 years old, I had this overwhelming question.

I must have seen how this thought process could lead to no place good, because I distinctly remember making the conscious decision to let that question be.

If the word of God says he has always been, then it must be so.

This basic concept began to shape my very experience with God.

Do I believe what God says about himself?

If he says he has always been and that he didn't have a beginning, then that must be the case and I don't need to understand it.

If God says he is love, then just because I don't understand something doesn't mean that it isn't born of God's love for me.

Fast forward to my early 20s and the next great question of my developing faith in God.

Do I believe what God says about his love for me, his plans for my future and hope?

We never officially dated, but we had a mutual understanding of our growing interest and affection.

But there was this nagging feeling that he wasn't who God had in mind for me.

We stayed friends, and a few months later he was killed in a car accident.

I won't belabor the tragedy that was for me, but I bring this story up because during the struggle of deciding to tell this guy that I couldn't talk to him as a prospective boyfriend, was this great question in my understanding of my relationship with God.

Can I trust him absolutely with my happiness?

Now we skip ahead to when I realized I was going to pursue medicine.

I was in the nursing program at Southern Adventist University and I was just a couple months away from graduating with my associate's degree.

I was rotating in the intermediate care unit and my eyes began to follow the white coats.

This was back before everybody in the hospital was wearing a white coat.

This was overwhelming, this impression that I was supposed to pursue medicine.

I was actually a little depressed about it, because here I was about to graduate with an actual functioning degree, I was about to go join the adult workforce.

And now, I was about to start the most painful and exhausting journey ever.

I graduated with my associates and then started my bachelor's in nursing degree along with the many, many pre-med courses that I would need.

It didn't take long before I was filled with nervous excitement and driven towards medicine, wanting it more than anything I'd ever wanted before.

And here was a third distinct question as part of my journey with God.

Am I willing to accept the journey He has for me with no promise of destination other than the knowledge that he promised me a future and a hope.

I knew full well I might study my tail off and not get into medical school.

And frankly, by this time I was kind of used to God cutting off my dreams and I had to just just trust that they were for my best.

All I knew is I must push forward and what he was leading me to do and the outcome would reveal itself in time.

In 2015 I applied to medical school but I chose not to apply to Loma Linda.

I had my reasons, but a big 1 was the fact that it's across the country and my family lives in North Carolina.

During that application cycle, I was talking to a friend of mine from nursing school.

We had often had great, deep spiritual discussions, and he knew me pretty well.

He challenged me with the thought that If I wasn't applying to Loma Linda, then I didn't trust God.

He didn't mean that Loma Linda was the only option for an Adventist graduating from Southern, only that I didn't include that in an option for God to send me.

Basically, if I was trusting God in all these other decisions but reserving the right to make my own decision about where I was to go, then I really hadn't given anything to God at all.

I was just doing what I wanted and allowing him to have an opinion sometimes.

Well, it was too late to apply at this point and I didn't get accepted anywhere else that year.

I reapplied the next year with Loma Linda on the list.

I told God that he could put me wherever he wanted and I would trust him with it.

If I got accepted into a school, please let it be 1 school only.

I did not want to have to choose between Loma Linda and North Carolina.

I didn't want to risk my judgment being clouded by my emotions in a decision like that.

Back to Menu

Do You Believe What God Says?

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Bible Buts & Band-aids: How to Apply God’s Word for Trauma Healing

Questions for Healing: How the Bible Answers the “Whys” of Trauma

1h 1m

Flip the Script

03 Questions for Healing: How the Bible Answers the “Why” of Suffering

1h 6m

Living Free: Building a Better Brain, Body, and Habits – for Good!

2. God’s Peace Plan

1h

Power of Prayer

When God Doesn’t Answer Your Prayers

57m

No Mistakes

59m

Mental Health

02 The Stress Equation

49m

Eric Nelson: Christian Lifehacks

Christian Lifehacks 2: Paul

40m

Is God Enough?

1h 5m

Strength Through the Storm – Better Brain, Better Habits, Better Life!

01 Food, Mood, Cravings, and Immune Health

1h 3m

Who Do You Trust?

48m

My Single Joy

1h 14m

Praying While Waiting For an Answer

1h

Sound Doctrine