Lately, Matt & I have found ourselves watching a variety of shows featuring survival specialists. Given our current journey, I am not sure what that says about our personal fears, but never-the-less we are intrigued by what some people view as adventure and the human body’s amazing will to live. From where do people draw their strength? Where would I be were it not for my faith?
In our homeschool studies, William and I have been reading about the amazing courage of the early explorers. It took a great deal of faith to set out to the unknown not sure what they would find or how they would survive…but faith in what? Faith in life to turn out well for them…faith that they were trained sailors or survival specialists…faith that fate would see them through….
One of the books we read described a journey to sea in this way:
“In crossing the Atlantic by ship…we could see no path upon the water or sign of the shore. And yet day by day the helmsman was in a path as exactly as if he had been following a great chalk line upon the sea. And when we came within 20 miles of land he knew where we were as surely as if he had seen it all 3,000 miles ahead. How had we measured or marked our course? Day by day our captain had taken his instrument, and looking up to the sky, had fixed his course by the sun. He was sailing by the heavenly lights, not the earthly lights….so let us go forth this day, not knowing, yet trusting.”
WOW! That made me recall the verse in the great faith chapter of Hebrews, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed…he went out, not knowing where he was going.” (11:8)
Is that really what God asks of me? Just to obey and to trust Him by faith. I am sure I do not have the adventuresome spirit as those on the TV shows we have been watching, or the need to conquer as history has recorded the great explorers, but prayerfully I have the FAITH and strength to obey and journey where He leads.
When I look upon the “Atlantic” I am to cross right now in our journey to the mission field, I pray that I am daily choosing to put Christ as the helmsman & captain of my “ship”; I pray I am following the “great chalk” line that He puts before me; and I pray I am “fixing my course” by looking to the Son and not to the “earthly lights”.
I do believe true faith is not really measured when a person still has the ability to turn back around and head for shore. It is measured in the moments when a person is half way across the Atlantic and can’t go back or go forward….that is the place where we are right now. There are days when I look around and wish I could see the shore, but it is in those moments I choose to look up and see the “heavenlys” marked with His hand. The Son calls me forward and bids me to look only to Him.
I have found out that all the years I said that I had faith that God would send me to the foreign mission field was only just the conditioning of my sea legs. Now, I am having to put my faith into action by staying on the ship and trusting that the Captain will lead me in His time and His way.
Not Knowing, Yet Trusting!
AT
"In quietness and trust is your strength." Isaiah 30:15b
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