When We Step Out God Steps InSample

When we step out, God steps in

If you wanted to choose someone to work a miracle, would you choose four lepers? You would probably select a famous evangelist or pastor. These men were the worst possible choice for winning a battle. But the Bible says, ‘God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise’ (1 Corinthians 1:27).

You may ask, 'But who am I? What can I do?’ We will never know until we try. What if we get it wrong? At least we tried. Like an infant learning to walk, we will stumble and tumble often enough, but if we don’t do it, we will never learn to walk.

I feel embarrassed now when I think of some of the things I did in my younger days. But you learn through those things. And I have to say that I can’t remember that any great harm resulted from my getting things wrong.

A question: How often did Jesus rebuke people for too little faith? It’s not hard to find examples. Peter walked on water and began to sink. If I had been Jesus, I would have said something like, ‘Peter, you did a fantastic job.’ What did Jesus say? ‘What happened to your faith? Why did you doubt?’ (Matthew 14:31). The disciples asked him why they couldn’t heal an epileptic boy. The answer? ‘Because of your unbelief’ (Matthew 17:20). He groaned over a ‘perverse and faithless generation’ (Matthew 17:17).

Another question: How often did Jesus rebuke people for having or using too much faith? I can’t think of a single occasion. When did he ever say to anybody, ‘Come on, don’t overdo it now’? He did say some extraordinary things like, ‘I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you’ (Matthew 17:20). Astonishing.

When I took over the senior pastor’s position at a city church a few years ago, I preached on this topic for the first seven weeks: God steps in with power when we step out in faith. At that time, we had a few people engaged in short-term missions but no full-time overseas missionaries. Eight years later, twenty of our congregation lived and worked in overseas missions. Our annual overseas missions budget was well over a quarter of a million dollars.

I think the Lord is pleased when we have a go and try to reach out in faith. This may be a scary thing. David Newington, a renowned missionary entrepreneur in South Africa, once said, ‘We do our best work for Jesus when we are scared out of our wits.’

That’s when our eyes have to be on the Lord, and we must trust him. Because when we step out in faith, God steps in with power.

What next?

If you were Peter (Matt 14:22-33), what things would you have done differently? Why? Or why not? Memorise Matthew 17:20.