Step out on faith

I am not sure that we realize what faith is. It's easy to have faith that God will do something for "that person". It's even easy to have faith that God can do anything. What happens to our faith when we are in a situation of our?

The Bible describes Abraham as a man of faith. He left all he knew, the security of his father's house, the security of the city and traveled to places unknown. Places of danger and truthfully, places that he had no idea how he was going to get through. The Bible is filled with people of similar circumstances. People who did things opposite to the comfort and to what they knew.

Society would have us have all these plans and back up plans and agendas for doing things. Everything we do must make sense, it must fall in line with what is "normal". So, you plan for retirement, you make a financial future for yourself and kids, possibly grand children. You work 16 hour days just to make that happen and if you can, you fit God in there somewhere some Sunday into your schedule.

But God is different. He doesn't do "normal". Things that He asks of us requires us to step out of the planning and agendas, to leave the comfort zones and easy way out. He asks us to do things where there is no Plan B...just Plan A. He asks us to do unconventional things. Things that are outside of our reach, things that are only accomplished with Him. Things that simply do not make sense.

It sounds weird but I have likened that to faith. If I could do it myself and it made sense, how is that faith?? It made no sense for Abraham to leave the shelter of his home, no sense for Ruth to follow Naomi, no sense for Peter to step out onto water and it made no sense for Jesus to die on a cross for people who would ridicule him. But most times, the desire to be with Jesus, to be near Jesus compels us and we end up doing things that the world says "makes no sense" but maybe, just maybe that's what God calls "stepping out on faith"