journey onWord with us

How long would it take you to clean out your basement? Over the years, it has collected stuff … and more stuff … and piles of stuff. Highchairs, baby toys, bikes and other items that our kids will certainly want after 30 years of decay. Every basement tells a story, and all of us have stuff. How did we collect it all? Truthfully, we all have some treasures in the basement too (for those in the south, a basement is the level below the first floor). Things we want to keep, and many that we want to pass on to our children. Hopefully, those treasures won’t become estate sale items.

Some treasures in our basement are priceless. For over thirty years, I have captured quotes, articles, torn pages from books and stored invaluable insights from a generation of very wise people. But they aren’t helping anyone stacked and scattered in the basement (plus they’re testing my wife’s patience). So, this year, I plan to share some of those “treasures from the basement”. Words, quotes and insight that are timeless and incredibly meaningful. It is my hope that you’ll be encouraged on your journey by great stuff from the basement.

Last week these treasures popped up:

“The cautious faith that never saws off a limb on which it is sitting never learns that unattached limbs may find strange, unaccountable ways of not falling.”
– Anonymous (torn out page)

George Mueller reminded me that, “Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.”

And finally, Jay Dennis, in The Prayer Experiment, gives great basement insight:
Faith focuses on “Who”; sight is limited to “how.”
Faith measures the size of God; sight is controlled by the size of the problems.
Faith seeks God first; sight takes matters into its own hands.
Faith’s seeing-eye-guide is the Bible; sight’s guide is only what is visible.
Faith leaves it in God’s hands; sight picks it back up and worries and frets about it.

These words have been languishing in my basement, but that makes them no less true. The question for all Christ-followers is this: Are we willing to saw off the limbs of cautious faith, stop trying to make our faith about the humanly possible, and move from a faith that’s only rooted in what I can see to the kind that leaves every situation in God’s hands? Easy words to write, but not so easy to accomplish.

Here at Journey onWord, we like to say, “yesterday ended at midnight.” And the truth is, each new day God gives us is a chance to begin again. For just one day, give every situation to God in faith like our basement friends instructed us. We can do anything for a day — and don’t try to be perfect. Just take the next step and do the next thing.

“Faith is living in advance what we will only understand in reverse.”
– W. Cordero