Walking in Faith
The Lord has taught me some further understanding about walking in faith, whereas I once thought that a Blind Step of Faith was incorrect. Faith believes in the unseen, walking in faith, not by sight. It’s a hope for something that is not yet – believing in the promises of God. Holding fast to the thing that is afar off and trusting that God is with me. Thank you Lord for opening my mind and teaching me about walking in faith. I pray that this post will help any readers.. and I pray that it is written on my heart, in Jesus name. Amen. –
In a previous post, Blind Step of Faith, I discussed how it is not advisable to blindly walk without guidance from the Lord. The post showed a few examples of how a character in the bible heard from the Lord, and then they walked. They did not know where they were going, but they obeyed God’s promises, direction, etc. What I failed to expand on in that post is that we already have God’s Word.
For example, Abraham –
Genesis 12:1-4 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
Abraham didn’t pray and say “Where Lord? I need a map. Show me the direction I should go.” The Lord said “I will show you..”, so Abraham departed. Abraham had no idea where to go, what to do, how to do it, as He promised “I will show you..” So in a sense, Abraham did take a blind step of faith, but was it really blind? Not really, because God had already spoken that He will show Abraham. He held onto the promise of God that’s been spoken.
So in my current situation in life, the storm beating up against this now peaceful temple (praise God), I have direction from the Lord, and tons of it. He has spoken via His Word, thank you Jesus. Does this mean that I wait on the Lord, sit on my hands, and do nothing in this situation? In the past, I have, but that was because God guided me at that time via multiple confirmations : Wait on the Lord.
Recently, I received guidance from 2 separate sources. They both pretty much said the same thing. “Trust that God is with you. We don’t need a road-map and we don’t need God to plot out every step we should take.” I need to trust that God is with me, and take steps that are wise. I need to realize that He has already promised. As I am walking in faith, I pray and acknowledge God in the situation (bring Him into it, not making Him an outsider). I am praying for doors to be opened, and doors to be closed. Then I let things naturally flow, resting in the fact that God is with me while I am walking.
As I dwelt on the storm, God wasn’t there (Peace was gone). After I acknowledged God and put Him first, thus walking with God in faith into the storm, peace is now with me. Psalms 23 – As I walk through the valley of death, I will not fear for you are with me. Peace. Praise God.
But, I still remain on some simple principles that are important steps while walking in faith so that I am not walking blindly:
- Prayerfully acknowledge God during all steps before they are taken – Even during the thinking process. Pray for opened doors and closed doors. Basically, bring God into the situation.
- Be certain that the steps that I dwell on are not of selfish desires
- Pray for guidance, words of wisdom, and words of knowledge
Or, we can sum it up in the word of Jesus – Be watchful and pray.
What happened is that I called someone for help last week and did not hear back from him. See, I could have “forced my will” and called the man again. But instead, I called God. “Lord, if this is not the path I am to go down, then please show me a shut door and open another.” I trusted God that however things go, He is with me. The man then contacted me the next day and we setup a meeting. Now, I continued to pray – “Lord, please lay on this man’s heart your righteousness. Please make it evident if I am to go down this path and whether this is the man that I should travel down it with. If it is not, please make it evident to me, close the door, and open another.” I am continuing to acknowledge God during every step of the way and walking in faith that He is with me, and that He will do what He has already promised.
See, it doesn’t mean I sit by the wayside and wait for the Lord to have a plane flyby with a banner “Go this way!” I have promises from God already. I am for you, not against you. I have a plan to prosper you and help you. I am with you. I will provide.. and the list goes on and on. I hold steadfast onto those promises, even though I do not see them materialized into the seen yet, but I count the Lord as faithful to His Word. He cannot deny Himself.
Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
Hebrews 11:11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Hebrews 11:17-19 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.
I am fully persuaded and embrace the promises of God. I spend too much time saying “Now what Lord? Where now Lord? What do I do here Lord?” when I already have His promises. Walking in Faith doesn’t mean I blindly and haphazardly do things, thinking “The Lord is with me!”
There are certain principles that have to be followed, such as making wise decisions that line-up with the character of God. Unless I am reading the Word, there is no possible way that I can know what lines-up with God and what doesn’t. Walking in Faith is also walking with God, and if I do not know Him by reading the Word, then what exactly is it that I know? Me and my understandings…
God bless you and yours. Praise God, thank you Lord.
This reminds me of a time a few years after I became saved and God was trying to teach me to walk by faith, listen for his voice and to obey him. There was an invoice from my daughter’s ballet teacher that I had placed on my nightstand. It sat there for a year, unpaid. I kept meaning to pay it but kept forgetting about as it found it’s way buried under other papers and finally into my drawer. To my discredit, I am a MAJOR procrastinator by nature. After about a year, the Lord starting nudging me (but I thought it was just my inner voice – thinking to myself). He kept telling me, “you gotta pay that bill” and he put a visual reminder in my mind of the paper invoice sitting in my nighstand. For two weeks this went on practically every day. Finally I decided I’d better listen to the voice in my head. So I determined that day when I got home, I would go straight to my bedroom and find that invoice and write out the check and mail it with a note apologizing for forgetting about it, but here it is. It was for only $16! But I’m sure it was alot to the ballet teacher! Anyway, I did it. I thought to myself, finally, I can mark that off of my things to do! I know, I’m terrible. LOL
So, get this. The VERY NEXT DAY, after I mailed back the $16 invoice with payment, I found out at work that I had a large sum of money coming back to me – money that I didn’t use from Flexible Spending that I totally forgot about – just under one thousand dollars!!!!! Normally, this money would be lost to me – they don’t return this money to you just because you forgot about it and didn’t use it! My employer found this large, unused sum and determined to get it back for me and succeeded.
It was then that I realized that it was not MY voice telling me to pay that ballet teacher’s bill, it was GOD’S voice! And I am convinced that he would not have let me have a dime of that nine-hundred-something dollars until I paid the money that I owed.
Praise God! He is so good!
Now I wish there was more money that I have forgotten about!! LOL
– Andrea
Rochester, NY
:) That’s so cool Andrea, thank you so much for sharing. I love it! That surely is God. Thanks for the encouragement.
It’s like just now, I interrupted my response that I was typing to you and I went to prayer. At the end of my prayer, I was dwelling w/ the Lord in quiet time.. meditating with Him.. and my meditation went onto this current storm in my life and I was dwelling with Him on what’s next, where is my life going to go. At that moment of meditation, my phone rings. I wouldn’t typically allow it to interrupt my prayer, but I felt like I needed to answer it.
It was a brother in the Lord who said he was just praying for me. He said something like “I was just praying for you, and I wanted to tell you that the Lord has something for you.” (he went on and expanded pertaining to this storm in my life). I haven’t spoken to this brother in 2 weeks. And bam, at this exact moment. His call could have been 30secs earlier or 30 secs later, but it wasn’t. It was perfect timing – God.
And that’s what happened to you. Perfect timing. I’m waiting on a testimony from a friend who just came to the Lord recently. It’s the same thing.. God gave an unction/a word, a person obeyed, God blessed.
Man, I love you Lord. Thank you for what you did in this sister’s life and for what you do in all of our lives. You’re awesome!
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Travis Johnson.Iisha johnson
Michael A Lennard Jr
Marcell RB Lennard
Malceem Jordan Lennard.
I stumble but I got back up again.
THIS IS MY TRUE STORY
I gave my life to JESUS at the tender age of 14 years of age, and about two weeks later this is what happened to me.
On one morning in late 1986, I was getting up and I saw that everybody was sound asleep. Right across my room was the restroom, and as I begin to walk toward it, I heard the spirit of GOD say to me, “Look in your hand”. I began to say back to the spirit of GOD, “Why would I look in my hand?” Then the spirit of GOD spoke for the second time, “I said look in your hand”. By now I am still talking back to the spirit of GOD because I didn’t know what was going on. I was only 14 years old when this happened to me, so as you can imagine, I was frightened. So for the third and final time the spirit of GOD’s voice got really loud and HE said to me, “I said to look in your hand!” This time I looked at my right hand and I saw what looked like a puddle of blood, but here’s the thing: it was not bleeding. Then, right in the center of my right hand I noticed that GOD had put a beautiful cross there.
By now I had gone to my mother’s room and knocked as hard as I could on her door and when she opened the door and saw my hand, the only thing she could say to do, so we just decided to pick up the phone book and call up some of our local pastor’s to tell them what had happened to me. My mother and I came across a particular pastor in Newnan, Georgia, and we decided to call him. My mother started to tell this pastor about all that had happened to me, and this is what the pastor told my mom: “Tell your daughter to show as many people as she can about the cross that GOD had put in your hand”. The pastor also told my mother that GOD had ‘marked your daughter’. It was so amazing and so touching! And yes this is a true story. To this day that same cross is still in my right hand. (I just Love showing people!)
MATTHEW 19:26
BUT JESUS BEHELD THEM, AND SAID UNTO THEM, “WITH MEN THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE; BUT WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.” (KJV)
GOD Bless You!:-) -Angel
JESUS CHRIST IS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!!! I JUST Love being HIS servant!!!!:-)
Ha, praise God! I’d love to share this as a post on my front page with your permission. Please let me know! If you are ok with that, I’d also love to have a photo of your hand if you have one!
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