What if I asked you to permanently leave your home along with your family but didn’t tell you where you were going? You would probably think I had made a mistake or lost my mind. When we start going anywhere, we like to plug it into Waze, determine the travel time, review the weather, schedule our accommodations in advance, and plan for food along the way. So, it would be an odd and confusing request to ask someone to get started with no details. But that’s exactly what God told Abram (later called Abraham) in Genesis 12:1:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”
God didn’t say “go to Canaan”, which is where they ended up, He just said, “go to the land I will show you” and, apparently, Abram proceeded in faith. God did provide guidance to Abram and his family, as we see in the next few verses, and they did arrive safely. But, at the beginning of the journey, God required that Abram trust in faith that He would guide him safely to the right place.
Although most people don’t have this level of absolute faith, in fairness to us, Abram did experience God speaking directly to Him, apparently out loud, which would make it a little easier to follow God. But even if we acknowledge that absolute faith is a very challenging standard, we can still start to incorporate more faithful thinking in our day-to-day lives.
I’ve prayed a lot and asked for a lot of blessings for myself, loved ones, business ventures, and even my favorite teams, but only a few times in life have I truly, with no hesitation, said to God, “wherever You lead, I will follow”. I tend to live by what might be called “bounded faith”. If I can live in a certain place, with a certain lifestyle, and with all the comforts I would like to enjoy, I’m glad to follow God wherever He leads me. But that’s not true faith and I’ve probably given up many blessings He had in store for me because I’ve stayed mostly on my own path.
Faith is one of those concepts that looks simple on the surface but gets way more complicated as we dig in. Here are a few questions to help us think more about our own faith journey:
Questions
- Why do you think Faith is so important to God?
- Do you struggle with a “bounded faith” or do you easily turn things over to God with zero hesitation?
- Do you have any examples of where you went to God before making a big decision and felt like he guided you as you made that decision? Please share your experience if so.
- For the flip-side of the last question, do you have any examples of decisions you wish you would have made only after going to God for guidance?
- Why is faith something that we often struggle with? Why do we have trouble following God’s plan for our lives without hesitation?
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