Walking by Faith

 When Chris and I were being called out into faith it was the hardest time in my life.  Looking back, I know that it was the time that laid the foundation to know the abundance that He produces when we have faith, but when we were in the midst of it, I saw things from a different point of view.  I had never walked in faith before, I proclaimed faith, but to my knowledge I had never been asked to walk in it.  Many tests came in life before this moment, but those were strengthening through storms, this time it was different, it was us being required to walk out of our peace.  Into an unknown that can make any controlling, over-protective, strong-willed, helicopter mom/wife tremble with fear.  There was no control left in me and that was, something that before my faith walk would have produced debilitating, but because of the remembrance I had of the testing that we had experienced He had produced in me steadfastness and I had peace. 

I have never in my life with Chris known him to be so completely adamant about something, (I mean he quit his job without even discussing it with me, first!) I knew there had to have been something that he had experienced that I didn’t understand, and there was.  God had spoken to him; God placed a vision in him, and God called him. I tried with everything in me to reason, how we could follow yet still stay in control of the things that made me the most fearful; a considerable less income, to support and already in debt family, to live in a place that was less desirable in accommodations that would potentially compromise the health of my beloved family that I had struggled so greatly through obtaining years before.  Even though everything in me should have been pulling me further away, I learned that in submission I would receive peace. God will care for my every need (financial, spiritual, physical) in His timing, I prefer to be prepared knowing that my needs will be cared for, but if I only trust in what I have and can see then I will lose what I am leaning on.  When in the desert God showed the Israelites the need to trust in His provisions, in only allowing them to take food for the day because He was going to provide, if they took too much faithlessly then it would rot.

  Just as Chris was called to follow, I was called to support his calling, he is the head of our house.  It was made clear to me that in stressing over the things that were out of my control or more so trying to control the things God had covered, I was preventing Chris from following His call. Remember when Eve took matters into her own hands or when Lot’s wife looked back?  Let me make it clear that I did not hear his calling, I was not seeing his vision and the pull that he felt to move was not in me and only made me want to plant my feet even more just to retain some of the control that we had spent our lives to build (or at least so I thought). 

                In the last 5 years after stepping out in faith, we have been provided for abundantly, we have been loved and prayed over, we have been lifted up and we have received the promises that He made to us at the beginning of this walk time and over again.  He is faithful, even when we are not, He is always, and I praise Him for that!  I have experienced His goodness in ways that I could have ever imagined in my life before.  It was the greatest struggle emotionally as it was physically, but He has produced in me a faith that “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me”, there is nothing that I need but Him. And as long as I am in Him, He is in me and I cannot fall. 

Walking in faith is not for the faint at heart, He calls those that He knows will follow and through it He strengthens them to receive greater blessings.  If you have a little faith, He will require you to use more, if you have proclaimed your faith, He will require you to show it, live it and walk in it. But even greater than that He promises to and will be with you and bless you through it!  Trust that His promises are good, and He can do far more abundantly than we could ever imagine.  Be encouraged in my testimony that I have seen Him move; I have gone from walking blind, to seeing clearly all things that He reveals through my faith walk.  My calling may not be your calling but be aware that if you are called, He expects you to follow in faith and He reveals Himself more as you do. You will see Him, but you must move before He shows Himself, because in believing you will see. In my experience, the more I see, the more I want to see, therefore the easier and easier it gets for me to walk in faith.  But trust that if you are being called to support another’s calling your faith or lack there of could potentially make or break the mission at hand.  God’s way will always be, and He will make His plans prosper, He will call and if the called don’t respond, He will call another.