From Beside the Still Waters devotional...
A Leap into the Unknown - Read: Genesis 12:1-5, Luke 14:25-35
For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. - 1 Corinthians 13:12
I partially buried a tub in the pasture to water the geese I had purchased. The brim was about six inches above ground level. One morning I found two toads swimming in the tub. They were trapped; the water level was too low for them to escape. They had taken a leap into the tub with no thought of how they would get out. Don't we humans sometimes do the same, and then call on God to rescue us? With a water hose I soon filled the tub to overflowing, and the toads hopped to safety.
In today's first Bible reading, God directed Abram to leave his home country and travel to a land that God would show him. This was not a blind leap into the unknown. Abram went in faith, trusting the words and the leading of God. We likewise do not know what the future has in store for us. The path may seem untraveled and very rugged. We stumble and our feet get sore; the muscles ache and the body grows weary; but the faithful hand of God continues to guide us if we reach for it.
In today's second Bible reading, Jesus showed the importance of thinking seriously before we leap. What will be the cost? Do we have enough faith and commitment to take us through to the end? Elsewhere Jesus spoke of those who gladly received the Word but endured only for a time, because "when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended" (Mark 4:17). Indeed we do not know what is coming or even what we ourselves will do in the future. But if we trust God and remain faithful one day at a time, we need not fear the unknown before us.
Harold Zimmerman - Myerstown, PA
Faith is letting down our nets into nontransparent depths at the divine command, not knowing what we shall take.
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