Faith. Such a little word, but one that becomes so huge, like a hurdle, when we try to put it into practice! Why is that?!!
The dictionary defines faith as: confidence, trust, reliance, belief, assurance. Joni Erickson Tada defines faith like this–“Faith isn’t the ability to believe long and far into the misty future. It’s simply taking God at His Word and talking the next step.” Faith belongs in this moment, the present. It is a choice–my choice–whether or not to take the next step. I can choose right now to believe that God’s Word is true, that He will do what He promises, and I can always trust Him, or—- not. We are often so busy living in guilt over our past, or frozen by fear of our future, that we totally miss today and our ability to choose faith.
My faith journey at Shepherd’s Gate began years and years ago when I came to do my rotation Sunday. As I walked in, I saw several ladies gathered around a desk staring at something. I was to quickly learn that what they were “mourning” were our last three rolls of toilet paper. They had formed the rolls into a toilet paper shrine—two rolls on the bottom and one sitting proudly in the center on top of the bottom two! It might seem appropriate to say that there was weeping and wailing, but that would be a tad bit of an exageration. There was, however, quite a bit of moaning! Being the only staff in the building I said, “We will just need to pray about it.” And we did! Noon brought a couple who said they had clothing to drop off. As they were filling out their receipt, the man said that he wasn’t sure if we would want it, but there had been a sale on the large packs of toilet paper. . . ! How exciting to later tell the women how God had sent them their request!!! The next morning found our reception area filled with rolls and rolls and rolls of toilet paper! A Sunday school class had ben saving it up for us, and God sent it just when we needed it! I have so many stories about chicken nuggets and ranch dressing, black boots, a wooden giraffe, tea bags, cheese cake, sheets. . . the list goes on and on and on. We see the miracles here daily. When someone says we need______, the answer here is always, “Let’s pray and see what God will do!” It is so exciting to see what God does when we have faith that He can, and will, “give you all you have need of from the wealth of his glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
As a little girl, I used to sing a song by W. B. Liggett that said, “Faith is just believing what God says, He will do! He will never fail us, His promises are true. If we but receive Him, His children we become (John 1:12). Faith is just believing this wondrous thing is done!” Do you know Him? Then you have already chosen to take the biggest step of faith; now, just take the next one and the next one. . . !
