Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Trust and Obey

“Faith that is sure of itself is not faith; faith that is sure of God is the only faith there is.” ~Oswald Chambers

I wonder how many times we (Christians) have missed out on what God is doing because the timing seemed to be off or the circumstances seemed to be wrong? This isn’t anything new. Throughout history God has called His people to follow Him and seldom, if ever, has the “timing” and/or “circumstances” seemed favorable.

God called Noah to build an ark and told him a flood was coming… during a time in which it had NEVER rained! Noah obeyed even though it meant he would be greatly misunderstood and heavily criticized and the result was he and his family was saved.

God called Abram to leave his family and land to follow Him… without revealing to him any details. Abram followed God not knowing where, believed God not knowing how, and waited on God not knowing when. In doing so he became the father of a great nation.

God called Joshua to lead the armies of Israel against Jericho but outlined a CRAZY battle plan… march around the city a prescribed number of times and at a certain time the priests would blow on trumpets and the people would shout and the walls would fall down. They did as they were told and tasted the victory.

God sent word to Mary (read 14 year old girl who was not married and had never been with a man) telling her she had been chosen to conceive and give birth to the Son of God. Talk about inconvenient! Yet she responded with faith and the rest is HIStory

I could go on, but these great and true stories are sufficient to remind us that God’s call will very often come at a time that SEEMS inconvenient for us and may not make any sense to us. However, this shouldn’t surprise us. God consistently calls His people to do things that can only be accomplished with His power and provision, thus He alone gets ALL of the glory.

God is always on the move. And... He is leading us (Christians) outside ourselves and into a community of people whom He is seeking to save. The details are few and much of what is happening doesn’t make sense (humanly speaking). Let us not allow these minor issues to prevent us from living and moving by faith. Let us pray and seek wisdom from God and let us obey… even if it means we don’t know where, when, or how.