Two Feet In Faith
Have you ever just known things were going to work out? You step up to the plate – maybe a literal plate, baseball bat in hand, maybe a metaphorical one to face whatever challenge or task is ahead – you swing, and you knock it out of the park.
Just like you knew you would.
You’re confident in the outcome, sure of your abilities. There is no hesitation, no doubt. Just complete and utter confidence. You’re going to shoot your shot and you know you’re going to make it, no questions asked.
Faith.
That confidence in the outcome is complete and utter faith.
Knowing you can do something, believing something, trusting something wholly?
Faith.
I was journaling over the weekend when God asked me a question I’d like to ask you now:
Do you have both feet in faith? Or is one foot in faith, the other in doubt?
He used my pen to remind me that I have felt a lot of confidence in my health journey as of late. Deep into Whole30 and the habits I’d once been able to do in my sleep now falling back into place, I’ve slipped into a place of expectation. I step on the scale or take my progress photos and expect results. I have faith that the actions I’m taking are working. I have faith – complete and total faith – that I’m moving in the right direction. I see the results of my efforts and my deposit in the faith bucket
I don’t struggle with belief in this area of my life (at the moment – it hasn’t always been like that). I have two feet fully in faith.
That’s not the case in other areas of my life.
In other areas of my life, I straddle the line. One foot in faith, the other in doubt. I know what God has promised me, what God has shown me. I have faith in those things. Yet… I catch myself doubting. I catch myself trying to manipulate things to move along faster, to work out exactly so, to unveil themselves in my time, not His time. I question the “how” and I really question the “when” and I get sassy when I feel like God isn’t listening.
That one foot is very much squired in doubt sometimes. Deep, murky, thick doubt. The kind that can suck your boot right off.
Straddling the line of fear and faith isn’t where we are called to be, however. We are called to live with both feet firmly rooted in absolute faith that God is good and He will fulfill his promises.
A few verses on faith:
And if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. – Matthew 21:22
Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. – Hebrew 11:1
Jesus replied to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. – Mark 11:22-23
But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways. – James 1:6-8
In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. – Ephesians 6:16
Just a small selection of the many places the Bible reminds us to have faith, to not straddle the line of faith and doubt.
It’s hard though, isn’t it?
I certainly find it hard.
Faith is a muscle, they say. We have to flex it and work it and flex it and work it. We have to turn away when the doubt creeps in, choose to remain blind with the belief that things will work out.
Even when it’s hard.
Even when we cannot for the life of us see the how of it all.
Even when we’re feeling a little sassy with God.
Two feet in faith, friends.
That’s where we’re called. Away from fear, away from doubt, aware from questioning.
Even when it’s hard.
Especially when it’s hard.
Two feet in.
Flex those muscles.
