2 Corinth 5:7

"For we walk by faith, not by sight" 2 Corinth 5:7.


I've tried it several times. Walking from one building to the other across an open parking lot. I've closed my eyes and started walking. I had to have faith in several things. 1) I had to have faith in my ability to walk a straight line while temporarily "blind." 2) I had to have faith in my hearing to tell me if a car entered the parking lot -- or if I was approaching a parked car. 3) I had to trust my ability to tell how far I had walked before I came to the steps into the office. Being the prudent fellow that I am, I seldom walked the entire distance without peeking!


Walking by faith is a lot like that -- only the object of our faith is much more reliable than my senses! Our Lord is faithful and true. He cannot fail us for to do so would cause Him to be ungodlike, and that would cause Him to not be God -- and that's impossible!


So what's the problem? Like me in the parking lot, we all like to "see" here we are going. We like to have our lives laid out before us. We want to know where we are, where we will be in the next year, 5 years, 10 years. We don't like surprises except at Christmas and birthdays! So what's wrong with that? Nothing, except that it hinders our usefulness to God. We make Him dependent upon our schedule. ("Wait a few days, God. I've got a really good thing going here.") The only problem is that God won't wait, at least not very long and not very often. He expects obedience -- and being the God of the universe, He has the right to expect it.


So why is God so demanding of our obedience? Allow me to explain it this way. A friend of mine had a foster child who was educatibly mentally retarded (that's the term they used back in the dark ages of the early '80s. That meant that she was curious, but not able to understand a lot of things, but could be taught if you have the right amount of patience. One day she was at our house and was curious about the blue flame on the gas range. It was pretty. It danced before her eyes. So she reached out to touch it. We shouted for her to stop. You can only imagine what would have happened if we hadn't demanded total obedience of her.


Likewise, we have a tendency to want to do our own thing. But God in His wisdom knows much more than we. He knows when we are about to get into serious danger. He also knows when some other circumstance is perfectly ready for harvesting for the Kingdom. If we don't act instantly, we may get seriously hurt -- or some soul may spend an eternity in Hell.


I know all of this is over simplified, but it makes the point. We must learn obedience. We must learn to walk by faith, knowing that God sees everything, knows everything, understands everything and has it and our lives perfectly in control. Amen and Amen.