Keep calm & have faith!

We used to play this team building game where some people would wear blindfolds and pick a partner to lead them through a maze safely using only their words. It was always very scary for the person wearing the blindfold, yet very comfortable for the person giving the instruction.

People say all you have to do is have faith as if faith is easy.

From my vantage point, faith increases as you step out and dare to believe.
But it's not as easy as it sounds.

If a person was seeing all of their life and suddenly went blind, their world, as they know it, would change. Complete independence would swiftly change to complete dependence. Their lifestyle patterns would change. Things they use to do on their own, would now become something they'd need to trust someone else to do. Help with walking, paying bills, working on their job, eating and all the other day to day routines would revamp.

The same is true of a person who needs to have faith. We have learned to provide for ourselves, and fend for ourselves, operate on our own timelines, get up and go when need be.

All these routines set in place are, to a degree, expected to drastically change when faith is implemented. Faith is very similar to trusting someone else with your life and the details therein. It's hoping, without knowing whether answers will come or if doors will open. It's believing that God has your best interest at heart. It's the expectation you have in that stressful wait time between asking for your need and the answering of that request.

Going from seeing (providing for yourself) to blind (trusting someone else to see for you and guide you) is never easy. It's scary, it's uneasy and unsure. It's relinquishing the control we so desperately want to have.

Yet God lovingly requires it from us, stretches us to that end, proves His faithfulness through it and is pleased with us when we execute it. (Without faith it's impossible to please God.)
And with every trial that requires our faith, we are squeezed just a bit tighter than the last trial. That pressure, in turn, forces us to stretch our faith just a bit further than the last. What's amazing is, if in fact we utilized faith in the previous test, we have the "umph" needed to conjure up the faith for the current test. Not only that, but we can draw upon Gods record of faithfulness in our past, to get us over that chasm of uncertainty.  Either way, it's still blind, and still just as difficult and uncomfortable.

In light of these discoveries, I often find myself relating to the guy in the gospels, who confessed, "Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief."