Thursday, January 26, 2012

Walking the Road of Faith

I'm where I've longed to be spiritually for most of my life. I'm filled with self-contentment, excitement and downright joy. I've come to this place because I have no guarantee but trust in God that the journey I am embarking on is even possible. My husband and I have made the choice to move ourselves and our kids away from family and familiar places to follow the feeling that this is where God wants us to go. The only certainty we have is that we know God will get us there and will see us through. We don't know how. We just trust that the pieces will fall in line instead of falling through.

Trust can a big issue for people. It's hard just to step out in faith, but a leap of faith can be almost impossible. Almost, but before we dig in our heels and refuse to move for the sake of stone-cold fear, let us consider a few who did not, and history has been forever changed. In fact we owe our lives to their faith. For example: God said to Abraham, "Pack up everything you have, your entire household and everyone in it and go far away to live in a place you know nothing about." God said to Moses,"Go back to Egypt, and tell pharoh, 'I'll just take my people and go now.'" The Lord said to Gideon, "Go attack the Midianites with only Three hundred men." A couple thousand years later, God said to a young, unmarried girl, "I'm going to cause you to have a baby." He said to Joseph, "Go ahead and marry her," and later, "Pack up and move to Egypt." He said to Paul, "Go and teach the Good News. You owe me one."

None of these people would have been considered remarkable in their time or ours until they trusted God and did what He commanded. (I don't see anything in there where it says, "God said, 'Please do this ofr me. I'd be so grateful.'") They were all regular people until God chose them for His work. They weren't kings. They didn't work miraculous wonders until they worked for God. But they had to trust God to do it. They had to give Him control, and then give Him the glory.

Now God is calling us -- you and I, our neighbors, our families, our friends -- to walk down a new road. We may be leaving a lot behind, like the places we've always called home, the jobs that pay the bills, or a network of familiar names and faces. The location might not have even changed, but the choice was to live a different way, let something go, do something new and do it for God.  We may be walking the road without our friends. We may be leaving family. Maybe those friends or family are already gone. Whatever the road or wherever we go, we never walk alone. Even when no one else is there, God walks by our side.

Back to my husband and I. The choice sounds crazy because it's so different and so far away. We have our kids to consider, five of us altogether to uproot.  It seems rash to chase a dream when you aren't twenty anymore, you have a family, and you expect to have established something in your life. By now, you've either followed those dreams or packed them away in favor of reality. But when God calls, you're dreaming if you think you can turn Him away. I've learned that God can turn anyone around and can wait anybody out. Keep in mind that He's got all the time in the universe.
The steps He is asking you to take on the path He sets may seem big or difficult, but all it takes is a trusting heart. All you may need to do is change the way you look at things, how you determine what makes something easy or hard, plausible or possible. I'm following a path into service, and I know this path is where I need to be. I know because I trust Him, and I'm willing to let Him lead.

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