Our daughter is one year old, and she is just learning to
walk. The other day, she learned a
valuable lesson. She was upset about
something and as she walked she shut her eyes because she was crying. She walked straight into a wall. Her lesson?
Looking where you are going is important!
As a family, the lesson we are being schooled in right now
is a striking contrast. We are learning
to walk blindly.
My husband recently announced his resignation from the
church that we are currently working with.
We’ve only been here for two years, so we weren’t expecting to
transition again this soon. It was a
decision that was extremely difficult for us to make. We prayed a lot and sought counsel from
people we respect in the Lord. Through
this we felt God leading us in a different direction from where we were currently
going. At first, we did not want to
accept His leading. We both tried what
we could to convince ourselves that we heard incorrectly. However, it became very clear that God has
something new for us. What is it? We don’t know. We don’t have any idea. We can’t tell you where we’ll be or what
we’ll be doing even three months from now.
We are following God and trying to trust.
As we walk together through this challenging time of
transition, we cannot see where we are going.
Our eyes are open, but the direction of our path is hidden from us. We put one foot in front of the other and
keep on moving forward in faith.
We’ve had practice in this exercise before. My husband reminded me of one
such instance recently. When we got
married, we moved halfway across the country.
We knew we were going to work with a church as part-time youth
pastors. We knew the monetary compensation
would be slim, so we were planning to find other employment also. But we moved without having anything lined
up. Oddly, I don’t remember being
terrified about this. Why wasn’t I? Youth and enthusiasm may have had something
to do with it. We were only married a
few weeks when we moved, so perhaps there was some "love is blind" type stuff thrown in
there. Naivete is probably a big reason. We got a lot of necessary items for our
household as wedding gifts. We also made
some purchases, and I thought we were pretty well set. I remember being surprised by the fact that
we had to buy things such as a toilet plunger and light bulbs, and being quite
surprised by how quickly the cost of those things added up! I guess I just took such mundane, everyday
items for granted when I lived at home.
Did we also have faith and trust in God? I know we did.
Did we also have faith and trust in God? I know we did.
Despite the fact that this isn’t the first time we’ve lived
with "blind" faith, this time still feels completely different. Sometimes, even though you've been through something once, you still feel like you're learning it all over again the second (or third, or fourth...) time you experience it. Even though we've been through this before, this time is more intense than any of the others. We still struggle not to worry about the future. We can do nothing more than take it one day at a time, leaning heavily on the God who "knows the plans He has" for us. For our family. For our lives.
This blog is a new venture for me. I've titled it "Faith Undaunted". According to dictionary.com, to be undaunted is to be "undismayed; not discouraged; not forced to abandon purpose or effort; not giving way to fear". I want to have a faith like that! I desire to live my life in such a way that I am not swayed by fear or worry. I don't want to break when I bend. I want to stay focused on God in the midst of trying times so that even though I may feel like things are out of control, I can know that they are not because my God is bigger than anything I could ever face.
I don't have this all figured out. I am far from perfect. But I have a God who is walking hand-in-hand with me through my life and helping me to learn how to live with an undaunted faith. A faith that doesn't give up. A faith that says, "Come what may I will yet praise Him!"
For right now, this means that even though I can't see where God is taking us I will strive to remain confident in His leadership. And when I let worry take hold, I will strive to turn my attitude around and remain confident in His love.
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
-Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)
