A leap in the dark?

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3 years ago I set on a journey to leave friends and family behind for a life abroad that I had only seen in missionary journals mixed with some television drama.

Some would say it was a leap in the dark, a step of faith. But looking back I beg to disagree. Not least because this turned out to be the most instrumental years of my life but as I learned from God’s Word, it never really is a leap when we know the God we have believed.

Starting a new friendship, getting married and a new job overseas might be a leap but not trusting God. One of the things that have amazed me this year studying the Bible Overview and Mark’s Gospel is how much God has amassed in his Word not only to help us know him but help us believe and continue believing in him. To me, it’s an undeserved blessing and one we rarely recognize or praise him for. It’s almost as if God knew how stiff-necked we can be! That even with all the facts and evidence on the table, we would need more to deal with our hard, sinful hearts.

I have been struck by how much one can know about God and yet not believe in him. The mind can be full and the heart as hard until God does his life-giving work. But it’s not just a one-time miracle that stops at our Christian birth, he is doing this miracle in every day of our Christian life.

Nothing pains me more than seeing my sinful craving despite all the wonders of God’s revelation. It’s more than foolishness that I would settle for the temporary that is vanishing away when I can have the permanent glorious reality. But I see it all the time and not just in others but I hear the lies linger in my ear and my sinful heart is drawn to them. I’m convinced that if I didn’t have God at work in me by his Word then I would fall like a man who never heard of God before.

So this is my joy and conviction as I set forth in the unknown if you like, that I have a friend who will never leave me. One who will carry me by his Word to his eternal home. I dare not trust my knowledge or my weak strength but in the one who never fails.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40.

Trusting in him is not a leap in the dark. It’s only a leap when I trust in my own strength. It would be a great step of faith if I trusted my knowledge, even my own knowledge about God and the Bible. But since I have the God of the universe by my side, at work in my heart by his Word and leading me on the way then I have the full assurance to live for him now ahead of living with him forever.

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