Awakening: Week 4 - What God Uses Must Never Replace the God We Trust
When What God Uses Becomes What We Trust
There are moments in life that feel like turning points -
seasons when something wakes up inside of us.
A place.
A relationship.
A season.
A memory.
We don’t just remember them, we long for them.
They remind us of who we were, what we felt, and what seemed possible at the time. And when life grows heavier, more complicated, or unfamiliar, it’s easy to say, “If I could just go back…”
That longing isn’t wrong, but it can quietly shift our hearts.
And for those who follow Jesus, this is where the tension deepens.
Because faith is not built on revisiting sacred moments…it is built on trusting a living God who is still speaking, still leading, and still inviting us forward. What once marked a moment of awakening can slowly become a place of security. And before we realize it, we are holding onto the memory of God’s work instead of walking with the God who is still working.
That tension, between remembering what was and trusting what is, is one of the most subtle challenges of the Christian life.
When Victory Feels Like a Setback
In the wilderness, the people of Israel experienced both breakthrough and disappointment in rapid succession.
After nearly forty years of wandering, they once again saw God move in power. They prayed. God answered. They were victorious.
And then, almost immediately, everything shifted.
They were forced to turn away from the direct path forward and travel back into the desert, into heat, exhaustion, and uncertainty. Scripture says the people “grew impatient on the way” (Numbers 21:4). They were not just angry. They were tired. Emotionally drained. Spiritually worn.
This is what many call perceived regression: the moment when it feels like God has brought you forward only to turn you backward.
And when that happens, disappointment doesn’t just appear…it multiplies.
We wonder why God would allow momentum to turn into delay. We question whether the breakthrough meant anything at all. We struggle to trust when progress no longer looks like progress.
Yet this moment reveals something deeper: even after victory, God was still teaching them to trust.
When God Uses Something - But We Start Worshiping It
As the Israelites complained, God allowed venomous snakes into the camp. People were bitten. People died. The community cried out in repentance.
And God responded. Not by removing the snakes immediately, but by giving Moses a strange instruction:
Make a bronze serpent.
Lift it up.
Tell the people to look at it, and they will live.
God could have done this any number of ways. But He chose a symbol, something visible, something tangible, to test where their hearts truly rested.
They were healed when they looked.
They were saved when they trusted.
But here is where the story turns.
Seven hundred and fifty years later, that same bronze serpent appears again in Scripture. And this time, it is no longer a sign pointing toward God…it has become an object of worship.
In 2 Kings 18, King Hezekiah destroys it. Why?
Because the people had begun burning incense to it. They had named it. They had turned what God once used into something they trusted.
They called it Nehushtan - “that bronze thing.”
What was once a gift from God had quietly become a replacement for God.
The Drift from Faith to Familiarity
This is how awakenings lose their life.
Not because God stops moving,
but because we begin trusting the method more than the Master.
We start believing in what God did
instead of trusting who God is.
A song.
A place.
A building.
A season.
A relationship.
A ministry.
A system.
Each of these can be sacred.
Each of these can be used by God.
But none of them were ever meant to replace Him.
What once required faith eventually becomes familiar.
And familiarity, if we’re not careful, replaces dependence.
This is where museums are built: places that remember what once mattered.
And this is where mausoleums are built: places that honor what once lived but no longer carries breath.
Jesus Makes the Meaning Clear
Jesus Himself pointed back to the bronze serpent:
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him.” (John 3:14–15)
The sign was never the point.
The Savior always was.
God uses many things, but He always uses them to draw us back to Himself.
What God Uses Must Never Replace the God We Trust
This is the line we must carry with us:
What God uses must never replace the God we trust.
Awakenings are sparks.
They are beginnings.
They are invitations.
But they are sustained not by hype or nostalgia…
they are sustained by persevered trust.
Not just believing in what God once did,
but surrendering to what God is doing now.
Two Questions for Reflection
What have I allowed the world to teach me to trust instead of God?
Where have I settled into the familiar rather than living in daily dependence?
The drift is always toward what is comfortable.
Faith always calls us forward.
God is still speaking.
God is still awakening hearts.
God is still inviting us to follow.
Not backward,
but forward.
And not toward a moment,
but toward Him.