Walk By Faith, Not By Sight

Have you ever tried to “figure out” God’s will for you? In my life I’ve had issues with jobs, with churches I’ve attended, with relationships with people and countless other issues in which I’ve sought God about what to do or what not to do. Something I’ve slowly learned to trust in, and to rest in, is that God Himself knows the plans He has for me and He knows that He created me in Christ Jesus for good works that He Himself prepared in advance for me to walk in! (Eph. 2:10). Since I, on the other hand, don’t know all His plans for me, my default position must be one of trusting in Him and resting in His sufficiency. Sometimes I see parts of the puzzle and sometimes I’ve gotten a glimpse of how some of the pieces fit, but overall I can’t see the big picture. We walk by faith, not by sight.

“By faith,” the writer of Hebrews says, “we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” He says we understand “that” God did all these things. He doesn’t say we understand “how” God did all these things. By faith we understand “that” God has a plan for us but we, with our limited human vision (compared to God’s omniscience), almost never know the full plan or “how” it’s all going to work out. If you’ve walked with God even for a short time, you’ve probably discovered that it hardly ever works out in the way you thought it would! No matter how intentional or careful you were with the steps you took, God intentionally took you in a whole ‘nother direction! During the process you may have wanted to curse Him, but afterwards you have nothing but thanksgiving to offer!

“Not knowing” can be frustrating, and sometimes I start to get worried about how things are going to work out. But yet I have a hard time picturing God running around all nervous and frantic, worrying about how things are going to turn out! God’s will and His plans are accomplished because He is God. Billions of people have roamed planet earth, and if each one has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that is an awful lot of sin that you would think would stand in the way of God’s holy plans! We have all kinds of opposing ideas, varying motives, and varying religious and political views, not to mention all the sin and evil in the world. But can you point me to a place in the Bible where God has anxiety about whether or not His plans will be fulfilled?! Ephesians 6 tells us that the true struggle is against principalities, powers, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Colossians 1 says that God Himself created all of these principalities and powers, and Colossians 2 says that with the Cross He Himself made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them!

As for sin, the Bible says that God “made Him who knew no sin (Jesus) to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” God dealt with the sin problem Himself. He dealt with it fully and completely and left nothing undone. “How” did God become a man? “How” did sinless Jesus become sin for us? “How” did sinful man become the righteousness of God? “How” does a Holy God fulfill His plans in the midst of such chaos? If we were to take a look at our individual lives - all the decisions, all the mistakes, all the weaknesses, all the falling short of the glory of God – and multiply that by all the people who have ever lived, it would be quite astounding to see just what God has had to deal with! And He did deal with it. He took care of it completely and sufficiently on a cross.

If He can put the sin of the world upon Christ, and exchange our own sin for righteousness, by nothing we’ve done but entirely by His own work, then it might not be too hard to see that He Himself can work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. I said, “that” He can. “How,” however, I don’t know! I take it by faith. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Heb. 11:1). This is “how” we walk the walk – not with human wisdom or sight, but by trusting in the grace of God and the very life of Jesus working in and through us. God isn’t a mere spectator in our lives. He is our all in all.