Stepping Into the Realm of Faith: Beyond Our Comfort Zone
1 Kings 19:7b
…the journey is too great for thee…
I have learned that if my problems are small enough for me to handle, it doesn’t take long for them to handle me! When I am dependent on the Lord, I am at my strongest, but when I am independent of the Lord, I am at my weakest. It is when we are called to a God-sized task that we are faced with God-sized problems.
God therefore will share His glory with no man. He wants to go beyond you and me, so that if and when anything significant is accomplished in us or through us, He is the one who gets the praise and glory! Oh sure, we start out with baby steps, but as we put away childish things and become more responsible and mature, we ought to find ourselves being stretched to the point where our strength steps aside to make room for God’s unfailing strength. It is in that place of dependency that we realize what walking by faith is truly all about.
Many of us, however, are guilty of never growing past that place of fighting our equals. We never take on more than what we are comfortable with, so we never grow. However, if we have one hundred wins, then discover that our 100th opponent is the same as our 1st, have we anything to boast in? It is imperative that we move on to more challenging opponents who will push us to grow in our faith, thereby bringing out the best in us!
Too many Christians never step out in faith, for fear of the challenges they will be forced to face head-on. We like to keep our problems personally manageable, don’t we? Just remember this; as long as you and I can still manage our problems, we have no need for God’s power in our lives, and that’s a scary place to be!
What we must learn is that our biggest enemy is not the unknown, but the familiar. It is the familiar that builds up prison walls about us, and that never permits us to get to the next level of faith. We can become satisfied with where we’re at, even if it’s a place of perpetual failure, as long as we can predict what happens next. I hope I never get to that place in my walk with the Lord!
I’d rather take a few risks while placing my faith in Christ, than to be in the same place twenty years from now as I am today, all in the name of predictability or familiarity! I say, “God, even though the journey is too great for us, we know that it’s not too great for Thee! Bring it on, Lord, for we depend on Thee!”
~ Pastor Gary Caudill
…the journey is too great for thee…
I have learned that if my problems are small enough for me to handle, it doesn’t take long for them to handle me! When I am dependent on the Lord, I am at my strongest, but when I am independent of the Lord, I am at my weakest. It is when we are called to a God-sized task that we are faced with God-sized problems.
God therefore will share His glory with no man. He wants to go beyond you and me, so that if and when anything significant is accomplished in us or through us, He is the one who gets the praise and glory! Oh sure, we start out with baby steps, but as we put away childish things and become more responsible and mature, we ought to find ourselves being stretched to the point where our strength steps aside to make room for God’s unfailing strength. It is in that place of dependency that we realize what walking by faith is truly all about.
Many of us, however, are guilty of never growing past that place of fighting our equals. We never take on more than what we are comfortable with, so we never grow. However, if we have one hundred wins, then discover that our 100th opponent is the same as our 1st, have we anything to boast in? It is imperative that we move on to more challenging opponents who will push us to grow in our faith, thereby bringing out the best in us!
Too many Christians never step out in faith, for fear of the challenges they will be forced to face head-on. We like to keep our problems personally manageable, don’t we? Just remember this; as long as you and I can still manage our problems, we have no need for God’s power in our lives, and that’s a scary place to be!
What we must learn is that our biggest enemy is not the unknown, but the familiar. It is the familiar that builds up prison walls about us, and that never permits us to get to the next level of faith. We can become satisfied with where we’re at, even if it’s a place of perpetual failure, as long as we can predict what happens next. I hope I never get to that place in my walk with the Lord!
I’d rather take a few risks while placing my faith in Christ, than to be in the same place twenty years from now as I am today, all in the name of predictability or familiarity! I say, “God, even though the journey is too great for us, we know that it’s not too great for Thee! Bring it on, Lord, for we depend on Thee!”
~ Pastor Gary Caudill