Day 7 - Issue 24
Matthew 2:14 NLT
'That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother.'
Faith generates its own momentum. Even as it is impossible to define faith in concise words, it’s evident through the lives we lead and the actions we take. Joseph, who has already demonstrated total obedience through faith, now with Jesus in his arms, flees the country in response to his dream.
I would like to say that having said yes to God in response to that Ashes win, my life accelerated towards peace, joy and security. However, these are not ever high on God’s ‘to-do’ list. Something of our human frailty craves such provision, yet God views life through an altogether different lens. Joseph and his family end up on the road again, nurturing a newborn, in unfamiliar territory and with little more than what they can carry. In fleeing, they exchange risk and certain disaster for just risk and ongoing insecurity. So it was with me.
And here was the learning. That in reality faith is about building a confidence within the person and the ways of God. It’s not about practising a belief in God from within the well-protected palisades of my own private castle. Faith of necessity must always carry with it a strong element of doubt. Even as I renewed my commitment to God and God’s work, I carried a niggling doubt in the core of who I was. Yet, from God’s perspective that doubt was of no consequence for I chose obedience over it, even though obedience didn’t quell its ever-present pangs.
I discovered, as no doubt Joseph did, that obedience will lead to more questions and almost certainly to a greater measure of instability. Like the holy family, I entered into unfamiliar territory. Here I prayed and waited by instinct and through discipline, for there was no more light shed by God. Just as Joseph found ways, I imagine, to sustain himself and wondered why there wasn’t another dream, so I returned to work without elation, and knowing this was no time for more fleeces. The walk of faith is discomforting as much as it is uncomfortable. It is a personal choice without any objective evidence to support or sustain it.
QUESTION: How much do you value stability and comfort?
PRAYER: Lord, help me not to place my confidence in these material things but instead in you, the giver of all good gifts.
