For the longest time, I’ve had a list of things I’ve wanted to do; dreams, aspirations and things I know God has called me to do…and what did (I intentionally speak in the past tense) I do about them? Nothing!
For the most part, fear was the thing that prevented me from moving forward. Fear restricts your progress and keeps you bound.
It whispers uncertainties and lies that ‘you can’t’, ‘you won’t be good at it’, ‘you won’t succeed, so there’s no point’. Fear is paralysing, it limits and hinders you from reaching your full potential. (Beware as fear can also disguise itself as a rational thought or a logical process).
Faith, on the other hand screams: ‘you have nothing to fear, just take a step, trust Me [God] and you will see Me come through!’
What Is Faith?
The Bible (Hebrews 11:1) describes faith as ‘the substance of things hoped for (what you want/need/ desire to have but do not currently have) and evidence of things not seen (evidence – meaning there are facts (in the spiritual) available to support the claim/belief but you just can’t see it physically…yet). So, we are working with three main factors here:
1. A desire for something
2. The belief that it is there or you have it based on spiritual facts available (you just can’t see it physically)
3. Then the physical manifestation of that thing you were hoping for
The first step is TO TAKE THE FIRST STEP!
Faith In Action
Let’s look at our great, great grandfather father Abraham.
God asked him to leave everything he knew and loved and Step into the Unknown. One thing to note here is that God wasn’t the God of Abraham’s father, so it wasn’t like he was brought up in the way of this God. When God called Abraham, he technically didn’t know who this God was and what He was capable of; there was no real reference point to validate ‘this God’. Nonetheless, Abraham took a risk and made the choice to listen and obey. If Abraham had put on his rational thinking cap, stayed put and questioned this God and His plan for him he would have missed out on what led to the BIGGEST thing of his life- being the father of our faith and the father of many nations. Fear could have held him back, but that would have been his greatest opportunity gone!
But, with Abraham we see this great manifestation of faith, love and trust.
Trust is an expression of Love. Let me explain
Generally we trust those we love, because we believe by them loving us they want the best for us all the time (at all cost).
So God who is love, loves us so much He has the best in mind for us at all times, Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that ‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ And in turn, our expression of love should be to trust Him enough to believe that He does actually love us and indeed wants the best for us.
Therefore, in loving Him we believe when He says go, if we take that step to go, even though we don’t know where we’re going, He will be right there to lead us all the way. And if he says ‘do’ even if we we’re unsure of what we’re doing, we trust that He will equip us to actually accomplish and achieve ‘the do’.
Now back to father Abraham.
When God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac his only son (Genesis 22). Abraham knew God loved him and had his best interest at heart. In reverence to God, Abraham obeyed, believing through faith that God will provide the perfect sacrifice that would be pleasing to God Himself (Genesis 22:8). Imagine, Abraham’s thing hoped for was a son, which manifested physically in his old age (Genesis 21:2). Isaac marked the beginning of the everlasting covenant God made to Abraham. God makes all these promises to Abraham that He will make him exceedingly fruitful and nations and kings will come from him (Genesis 17:6-9). Later on we read that God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son, this seed that contained Abraham’s fruitful future. This made no sense whatsoever right? But yet again Abraham chose to listen and obey.
Abraham demonstrated:
Love -for God, Trust in God’s instruction and Faith in His plan
…which we all know turned out great in the end!
Think about how touched and pleased God was when Abraham showed his love and trust by going through to give up his thing long hoped for because God asked Him to!
Faith is important to God because it shows that we love Him, believe Him and can trust Him.
Without Faith It’s Impossible To Please God
(Hebrews 11:6)
I have often wondered and thought ‘hmm if Abraham didn’t do it, what would have happened? I’m sure God would have called someone else to fulfil this great mission’. In our lives think about how many times has God called you to do something, and you don’t move. Or the numerous ideas you have that you do nothing about. Then all of a sudden you see Felicia doing that very thing you ‘wanted’ to do?
Stepping into the Unknown is an exercise of faith, because you don’t know where you’re going, there is no road map. It requires you to be bold and courageous because of the uncertainty the unknown holds.
I constantly remind myself, there are no guarantees in life, apart from death. Your future, your dreams, plans of success and all the rest of it isn’t really guaranteed, is it? So you might as well trust your unknown future to a Known God!
I want you to take some time out to think about these questions:
- What is God asking you to do?
- Where is He asking you to go?
- What budding ideas do you have, that you’re not doing anything about?
- What risk or big move have you been putting off due to fear?
- What steps do you need to take?
- What do you need to do differently to get to your destination or fulfil your potential?
Whatever it is that you want to do, whatever it is God is calling you to do I encourage you to take those steps of faith, and watch God reveal His plan for you, to you!
In truth and with Love
Faith xox