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 11:8
Christians talk a lot about faith, don't they? Walk by faith and not by sight, saved by grace through faith, faith and hope and charity, following in faith. It's a foundational component of a Christ-centred life. The very nature of our spiritual walk demands it. We serve a Lord and Saviour who is present in omniscient and powerful ways, but usually—and sometimes frustratingly—He remains invisible.
Faith, to quote Hebrews, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is following a Saviour we may neither see nor touch in pursuit of a heavenly home more eternal than anything this earth can offer. It's trusting in the will of the God who made us, the unseen Creator whose very word breathed everything we see into existence.
It's answering the call of a God whose ways are deeper and greater and higher, even when that means stepping out of what we know onto a road that could lead us anywhere.
That, after all, is what Abraham did. This verse from the Hebrews 11 Role Call of Faith (and also, not coincidentally, the Verse of the Month) is crystal-clear evidence of that. Abraham heard God's summons to leave everything he knew and sojourn into a foreign land, placing all that he had and loved in the hands of a God he couldn't see. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't have an itinerary, or a topographic map, or a letter of explanation signed Forever yours, God.
All he had was faith. And with that, he took the leap.
And guess what? God let him in on the destination—after he started moving.
A recent sermon blew my mind with this simple but profound revelation, that even in the account of Abraham and Isaac, Abraham needed to start the journey before God told him where he was going. He needed to take that leap of faith, to put his belief into action, to "start walking," before God gave him the details.
Abraham was the father of faith, and I've often marvelled at his example. But his story was not placed in the Word of God to fill us with warm fuzzies, or to be the topic of our admiring conversation—"Wow, those oh-so-faithful spiritual giants are just way out of my spiritual league."
Abraham's story is in the Word of God so that we might follow in his footsteps. And instead of sitting around being inspired by his faith from the safety of our spiritual comfort zones, let's answer God's call to start walking, to take a leap of faith and trust Him to fill in the blanks as we go!
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