Faith is often like taking a single step. Imagine taking a step. It really doesn’t matter whether the landscape is a city street, a wooded path, a lonely road, or along the shore. After we’ve taken one step in any of those places and compare what was to what is, not much changed. The lamppost is still at the same location. The car, the cactus, the electrical pole, the weed, the seashell are all where they were. But something has changed with that one step, and that change means everything.
Now consider the Psalmist words, “Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you.” (Psalm 25:4–5, NLT) Much about our growth in Christ is like walking along a path. Each step requiring faith and hope. But our experience often seems at odds with reality. Our hopes don’t appear to work and we wonder what went wrong. We took a step of faith but nothing seemed to happen.
Our journey of faith is not completed in a single step, but many steps. Each footfall of that path is important. So what changes when we take a step of faith? Sometimes our problems, the lampposts, the mountains, the landscape of our circumstance don’t seem to change at all. Sometimes disappointment sets in, after all, we did our part. Some may even abandon the journey based on their failed expectations of that one step. But something does change with that one step – we do. While everything else seems to stay the same, that one step taken in faith changes us.
Walking with Jesus in faith and hope is not about taking a single step but making a journey full of steps. Not just for one day, but for a lifetime of days. I can’t guarantee or promise that God will change the externals of your world. That the bleak cityscape around you will suddenly become a green meadow. I can, however, guarantee that you will change a little bit or a lot with each step you take with Jesus. And as you change and grow in Christ your world will change in ways you can’t even begin to imagine. All because of one step, one act of believing and trusting someone who cares about you. And then another, and another, and another…
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Your emails are so inspiring. I use most of it with our youth group as bible study