Forward in faith

From Derek Miller ~ Back in the early ‘70’s, I fashioned myself to be a pretty good baseball player.  I could hit the ball fairly well and was a pretty good fielder.  I enjoyed going to practice and playing in the games.  Most of my practices were fairly close to home and my parents were reliable to pick me up after practice.  One day, however, our practice was held at a local elementary school that was positioned by one of the malls in the city.  Relatively speaking, it was pretty far away from my house.  My mom dropped me off at 4:00 for practice and the last thing she said as I got out of the car was, “your Dad will be here to pick you up” and she drove away.  At about 5:15, our practice ended and other players started leaving the field.  Many asked if I needed a ride and I would just reply cheerfully, “oh no, my Dad is going to be here to pick me up.”  Finally, the school yard cleared and I was the only kid left there.  The time went by, 5:30, 5:45, 6:00 and my Dad had not arrived.  Remember this was before cell phones or texts, so I had no way of knowing what the hold up was.  As it started moving toward darkness at about 7:25, I hatched the idea that I would walk to the mall and call home—how I was going to do that, I have no idea as I had no money to use in the pay phone.  As I started walking away from the field, an approaching car caught my attention—it was my Dad and brother coming.  So, I ran back to the school to meet them as they passed me by.  It seems that my Dad had forgotten that he needed to pick me up and I was there alone for over 2 hours waiting on him.

I was never so fearful in my life when I was waiting for him and had no idea why he was not there.  Our heavenly Father, on the other hand, is there for us.  The hardest part for us is that we have to completely trust Him and have faith that He is going to be there for us and direct our paths.  Just like the fear that I experienced wondering where my earthly Father was when I was sitting at that practice field, I am sometimes paralyzed by fear—fear of the unknown in my future.  In Proverbs 3:5-6, it says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your path straight.”  In the King James Version, the last part of that verse says that, “He shall direct your paths.”  Notice that we are not called upon to trust in the Lord with some of our heart, or most of our heart, but every single bit of our hearts.  In the same way, we are called upon in all of our ways to acknowledge Him.  That can be easy to say and very difficult to put into practice every single time we are faced with a challenge.

With our upcoming transfer to Georgia, we had lots of questions.  While we are familiar with the area and it would seem that it would be easy to re-acclimate back there, we were faced with lots of decisions that had big impacts.  Most all of those were encapsulated in one big decision—where would we live.  While we had our own ideas of where that should be, we turned it over to God to help us make the decisions.   We thought we should look at areas closer to our offices.  We would continue to rule out areas further away.  While we watched, many houses that we looked at, started dropping out as options pretty early on.  One house that we really liked and was the first house on our list, went under contract in early March.  It was located further away from our offices so we dismissed that as being expected when we looked at it and kept moving forward because it was not in our desired location.  That house came back on the market and we continued to pray for God’s guidance as we looked.  I even remarked to our realtor that it might get to the point, where we would need a neon sign outside of a home saying, “This is the One”.  As we continued the process, many homes came on the market and we would pray for discernment as to which house we should choose.  One by one, those houses went under contract.  It became so concerning that we contacted our realtor and asked her if we needed to go ahead and come earlier than planned to find a house.  She indicated that we should.  So, in late March, we went over and started looking at houses again.  We saw one house that we really liked in the same neighborhood as the other one we liked.  Joyce and I discussed which one we would prefer and we prayed for God’s discernment.  During that week, the 2^nd house sold and we were left with the original house in that neighborhood.  As we walked up to the house on our realty tour, we could see a sign in the foyer.  There was a neon green poster board that said, “This is the One!”  While we know the realtors had talked, it became evident that the sign was right.  As we negotiated the price, the counter-offer came back right where we had hoped to be if we were buying the house.  The very next day, another offer came in but we had an agreed price by then.  It was not where we originally thought we would be, but it was evident that it is where God wanted us to be.

A few weeks ago, Pastor Mike told the story in Joshua where the Israelites were crossing over the Jordan River heading into the Promised Land.  In Joshua 3:14-17, it indicated that the Jordan River was at flood stage.  Joshua directed the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant to go forward.  As soon as they stepped their feet into the Jordan, the river water started backing up and the people crossed over on dry land.  Notice something here.  God did not tell the Israelites to stand on the sidelines until He was ready for them and then the miracle would happen.  He did not say, wait until I part the water in front of you before you cross.  They actually had to take steps forward in faith to step into the water before the miracle occurred.  Before they did that, they had no idea what was being planned.  They had to “trust in the Lord with all their hearts and lean not on their own understanding.”

In the book we just recently started in MOVERS called “Crazy Love” by author and Pastor Francis Chan, he talks about our minds are the size of a soda can and our God is as vast as the ocean.  Do I really want to have faith in and serve a God that I can compact into a space that I can comprehend and understand everything that He is doing?  Having read the entire Bible, I am yet to find where it says that we will always have complete understanding of everything that God is up to.  What it does say in several places is that we are to trust in the Lord.  In Proverbs, I am called upon to trust with my entire heart and acknowledge Him in everything that I do and He will direct my paths.  Just like the people of Israel, we have to move forward and let God direct us where we need to go even if we don’t fully understand what is going on.  Also, in Deuteronomy 31:6, God tells Moses to “be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified. . ., for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.”  With promises like that, are you willing to take the first steps of faith and let Him direct your paths?