Just this week I decided to take a bus that I knew the route very well in one direction, as I had taken that route many times. But, I didn’t know the bus’ route in the opposite direction. Starting out the route was normal, but then the bus made a turn down a street that seemed to be going in a different direction than I knew. The thought came to me, “How am I going to walk, by faith that the bus is going to go to the destination that I want, or by sight- am I going to get off at the nearest stop because the bus doesn’t look as though it’s going the right way, even though the map says I am?....

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 Just before moving to Berlin my father came to see me in Washington, DC. We were sitting in the awful and congested DC traffic and I had put into the car’s GPS to take me to a certain place, but in the back of my mind I thought its route was far out and ridiculous. But then I said to dad, “I better trust the GPS. Many times I have thought that it gave wrong directions and I trusted my own mind, and found myself lost.” Then dad said, “there’s something Godly about what you just said.”

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 How do we walk? Do we walk by faith and not by sight or just the opposite? There are many times in life when it seems the bus is not going the right way because it turns down an unfamiliar street, and we want to get off because, even though the route says it’s going right, we feel it’s not. Or, there are many times we put a destination in the GPS but it takes us through the congestion and we wish we had taken our own route, only to find ourselves lost.

 Do we trust God when He takes us down a street that doesn’t look familiar? Do we trust God when He has given us the GPS coordinates but He has us to go through traffic, and we think He has given us the wrong route? It’s so easy to think that God has made a mistake and that we’ve landed on a weird path. But, perhaps going down an unfamiliar street, or sitting in congested traffic is right where God wanted us all along. Why? Because we have to use faith to trust His guiding hand.  

 In the days, weeks, months, year(s) that it seems like we’re on the wrong path, or that the blessing isn’t being answered, or that all we have is faith, we must choose faith. To go by sight even when we have what we want is quite shaky. Though things seem murky and unsure, when we go by faith, we have an awesome Father who is looking at our hearts, asking us “how are you going to walk, are you going to trust me?” In this life we are inhibited by what we see, but God is looking for people who are going to trust Him to be their guide and to surrender to His plan in the uncertainties of life.

 This is one of the major parts of the Christmas story- that God sent His Son that we might have a true relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit- to trust Him when what we see seems uncertain.

 Happy Friday xx!