When 10 year-old David and 7 year-old Lydia began showing signs of
anxiety about moving out of the only home they have ever known their daddy gave
them a reassuring talk. However the talk still didn’t calm their fears, so he
asked, “What exactly is scaring you?”
“Well,” said Lydia, “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to pack up and move when you don’t
know where you are going.”
I chuckled in agreement with Lydia’s worldly wisdom…that is until I
thought about Abraham. “The LORD had said
to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go
to the land I will show you.’” (Gen 12:1 NIV)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Stepping out completely on faith has been one of my biggest struggles. This isn’t to say that I am a strong and efficient planner. I’m not. But like Lydia, I at least want to know where I am going before I set anything into motion. I’ve made enough mistakes to know how much they can effect the resulting course of your life.
-----We know that Abram left Ur upon the Lord’s direction. But we are not told how much research and planning he did before he left, and along the way. It just doesn’t seem to me that properly measuring your possibilities according to their circumstances and your abilities diminishes the faith by which you have determined to reach that goal. Living on the shorter end of my life, I know by experience that one’s living situation can be built much stronger when it has been built according to a general, yet flexible, plan. And though Christ works through our weakness, the strengths of our situations are His assets too.
-----Abram may not have known exactly where he was going, but he knew he was going somewhere and not returning. So he could not plan for life where he would be, but he could for life on the road. Maybe he sold his big screen TV and sofa and bought camp stoves and port-a-potties. I think faith links what we do know to what we do not yet know by going into that unknown as well prepared as possible by the known.
-----Truthfully, our plans are merely a short link or two joining our foreseeable circumstances to the completely unforeseeable ones coming later. Faith is making those links with as much consistency to what you’ve made of your life so far. But faith itself is not the point. Its container is the point. The more you have made your life of learning the Lord and putting on His ways, the better is that consistency for linking your plans to His, which you generally find when you get there.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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