Likely you've been there many times before; perhaps you're there even now. Ahead of you are the very things you've longed for, worked for, and even sacrificed a part of yourselves to reach: The joy of the closed deal, the lure of the dream job, the freedom of not having money woes anymore. Or maybe those things are more personal; maybe what you see before you is the comfort of the perfect mate, the settled joy of that dream home, or even just the end to all those lonely or loveless hours.
Yet tempting as they are, you're seeing them across a chasm. They sit, beckoning to you even as the voice inside your head points out the half-finished bridge between them and you.
In their own right, those things you're looking at across the gulf aren't wrong to want; in fact, they may be the very things the Father has promised you in your journey. Still, there's the pesky reality of that sudden drop between you and them.
What now? When do we stop to finish the bridge? Or when do we leap the chasm in faith, boldly venturing to the edge of our being to make that one caution-to-the-wind leap that opens doors that will never open otherwise?
And what if the things "over yonder" have been promised by God? Do we rush like Peter out of the boat, dashing across the water to Jesus, oblivious to the natural barriers?
How many times have we been to that edge, eyes darting anxiously between the things across the drop and the drop itself!
When do we stop trusting God? Or doubting what we've heard? Or taking steps to make things happen for ourselves instead of waiting on God? How can we know?
How can we know?
Those were the questions which must surely have passed through the minds of Abraham and Sarah when it didn't look like God was going to keep His promise of a son and a nation of descendants. There, in the face of the chasm, Sarah hit upon a plan to "help God"; and even today we suffer the effects of the struggle between Ishamael and Isaac. Abraham must have asked them again when God told him to kill Isaac, the very miracle which seemed to be the bridge to the dream. How could that make sense? This time, though, Abraham was not found wanting; this time, exactly as He promised, God did make things work without Abraham's "help", without forcing Abraham to do the very thing our sin forced God to do: end the human life of his only son. Had Abraham learned the earlier lesson?
Who could forget the crash of King Saul,
Yet the chasm presses us to consider King David as looked across the rooftops to Bathsheba. That leap left David more than just an adulterer, more than merely lustful: David, the man after God's own heart, became an accomplice to murder!
So how can we know?
There is only one answer, of course, and its simplicity isn't comforting. It's maddening, in fact: We must hear the voice of God.
Simple because the burden of the decision rests with Him; maddening because so many of us live our lives at the pace of culture, careening down the bobsled run of our days with noisy, wall-scraping abandon, driven not by purpose but gravity. The noise and the speed and the chaos mean we can't hear God. We are thus left to leap or look down based on what we think we know; based on the standards of this world. Oswald Chambers calls this the real fork in the road of faith; so, too, do most of the great writers of the Body.
Do not make that leap alone. Yet, I say just as urgently, do not pull back from that chasm merely because you're afraid to leap. You must take the steps necessary to hear God. Then, having heard, you must have the courage to act; the will to make the leap when everyone else shouts "Stop!:" or the will to walk away from the edge when God says "not yet."
It is time to stop guessing. Be still and hear His voice.
--Randy Kilgore
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