Faith isn’t a set of ideas… its a choice to trust, even when you can’t see the way forward…

What helps you feel secure?

Leeanne and I have been on a huge journey this year trying our best to trust God but not particularly enjoying the feelings of uncertainty that seemed to come with that.

At the start of the year we really didn’t have any idea where we would end up, and the thought of moving overseas seemed pretty far fetched.  As we get to the end of the year, it seems clear that we are about to move to the other side of the planet for a while… (we are about to send out a personal newsletter, if you would like to get it you can sign up here…)

As we took the journey of this year, we said that we would take whatever steps were open to us and seemed right, and see what happened. I can never seem to get from God a long term plan, he usually only makes clear what we need to do today.For a long time I have been challenged by Isaiah 50:10-11, a passage which actually seems to be counter-intuitive:

Who among you fears the Lord
and obeys the word of his servant?
Let him who walks in the dark,
who has no light,
trust in the name of the Lord
and rely on his God.
But now, all you who light fires
and provide yourselves with flaming torches,
go, walk in the light of your fires
and of the torches you have set ablaze.
This is what you shall receive from my hand:
You will lie down in torment.

The passage is actually inviting us to walk in the dark, and trust God for guidance rather than produce torches to light our own way.

St. Ignatius wrote

“Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to him and if they were to allow his grace to mould them accordingly.”

In all honesty we are not at a point where we are abandoning ourselves unreservedly… we have plenty of reserves and our feelings go up and down like a roller coaster in the face of such dramatic change, but I think we are discovering in a new way that the faith life is a one step at a time thing that fundamentally involves a loss of control as we hand the steering wheel to someone else.

I am enjoying studying a bit of Theology but I keep being reminded that faith isn’t a set of ideas… its a choice to trust, even when you can’t see the way forward…