Faith vs Sight

By faith we see that hand of God

In the light of creation's grand design 

In the lives of those who prove His faithfulness 

Who walk by faith and not by sight 

By faith...What powerful meaning is packed behind those two words!  Having faith seems like such a simple and easy thing to do at times, and other moments it takes every once of strength within me to walk by it.  The ease of walking by faith usually follows right beside how easy or hard things are in my life at that moment, or whether or not things are going how I would like them to go.  Scripture is FULL of one example after another of individuals were faced with huge challenges, and either they had great faith from the beginning or they had to travel some rocky roads before their faith came through.  The one thing that was constant in every one of those circumstances was that God was right beside them, holding them up whether they realized it or not.  Whether they were crying out to him from the depths of their soul  like with David in the Psalms, or trying to run away from His presence like Jonah...He was always there.  

By faith the church was called to go 

In the power of the Spirit to the lost 

To deliver captives and to preach good news 

In every corner of the earth 

As most of you who have read our blog know, Mitch and I are passionate for the nations.  We long to go and serve our God across cultural borders, 'to preach good news in every corner of the earth'.  We have told many of you that we will hopefully be overseas serving in one way or the other soon...and we do hope for that everyday.  But our faith has been tested in the last several months in many, many ways.  As much as we long to be moving closer to being overseas-it appears that the Lord has different plans for us right now.  By faith we trust that He will move us forward when the timing is right.  We are more than willing, but this is ultimately HIS work, and until He makes the doors open for us to move forward we will be staying where He has placed us.  That seems like a simple concept to accept, but it has really been a challenge for us.  We have been placed in another amazing church that is passionate about global missions (first Christ Community in Idaho Falls, and now Immanuel Baptist in Truro).  God is working in our church's missions department here and we are very excited to be a part of that, but the details are still in the beginning stages and we are unsure exactly what part we might play.  We are excited to keep you all in the loop as things begin to come together as we see a bigger picture of what God is doing there.  

We will stand as children of the promise 

We will fix our eyes on Him our soul's reward 

Till the race is finished and the work is done 

We'll walk by faith and not by sight 

As for now, we are focusing on 'fixing our eyes on Him' because he is truly 'our souls reward'. This life is a race, and "I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace." Acts 20:24.  It appears to us that the task that God has given us for now is to wait for Him, trust His timing, and well...to just live by faith.  So that is what we will continue to do...

Bolded lyrics: "By Faith" - Keith & Kristyn Getty