Trust and Faith

Text: Genesis 18:17
The Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, (NRSV)

I have to say that I’m not actually sure I want to know the details of what God is about to do in every situation.  For me, knowing the future not only takes away from the mystery of life but, also, can cause me to be too timid to move forward.

If I had known the amount of work that was in front of me as I was following my call to ministry, I probably would have never even inquired about my call to ministry with my pastor.  I certainly would have never begun the process that took more than 15 years to complete.  As I have revealed earlier, I had only 2 semesters of college, had dropped out five years before to get married, had two children, and just bought a house when I heard what I though was God telling me to go into full-time ministry through the ordination process of the United Methodist Church.

If God had revealed to me in the beginning that this involved going back to school for a 96-credit master’s degree, I probably would have laughed as Sarah laughed in the verses that proceed our verse for today.  I would have talked myself out of the whole thing.  How could I finish my bachelor’s degree and then go on and get my master’s while still providing for my family and paying my mortgage?  All commonsense answers would have included the phrase, “you can’t!”

Thanks be to God that the process and the journey were only revealed to me a bit at a time in small enough bites that I continued to say yes to God’s invitation to join with him in what became an amazing journey of trust and faith.  And maybe that is what is going on here too with Abraham.  Maybe God is not revealing “everything” but just what Abraham needs to know as his relationship with God begins to grow in trust and faith.  

I don’t think that I will ever pray a prayer that asks God to tell me what he is about to do.  I do think that I will continue to pray for God to reveal to me what he wants me to do in order to come alongside of him and do his will on earth as it is in heaven.  I will continue to pray that God increase my trust and faith in him that I might move forward disregarding what others might say can’t be done.  And I will continue to seek to build a more and more intimate relationship with God so that I might better understand his will, not only for my life, but for the world.

Pray with me:

God, reveal to me how I might be alongside of you as you redeem the world with your love. Increase my trust and faith that I might not pay attention to those who say, “it can’t be done”, especially when one of those saying it is me!  AMEN.

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