PioneersSample

THE FUEL OF A PIONEER: FAITH

If the destination is the vision, and the vehicle is your life, then faith is the fuel that keeps the engine going to see your vision become a reality. The gap between your present reality and God’s expansive future for you is faith. Faith is the thing that closes the gap between where we are now and where we are going.

As we began the church planting journey, we knew it would be hard, but we never realized the faith needed to see the vision become a reality. We needed faith for the finances. Faith for a venue. Faith for a team. Faith for a congregation. At every step we made, faith was required. But this is exactly how God designed it. And that's because Faith requires you to trust God in the gap.

This journey of trust is the reality of every believer: to take God at His word. To trust Him in every season, every situation, every mountain top, and every valley. The temptation that we have as humans is to trust God based on our circumstances rather than His character. But it’s important to learn that we don't trust God for what He does for us, rather for who He is to us. Whether my circumstances change or not, I can always trust Him because He never changes.

In fact, the Bible reminds us that without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith is the thing that attracts the attention of heaven and draws God into the story of our lives.

For some reason, faith never gets easy. You would think that once you step out in faith, that doing it again would be easier, but that is never the case. And that is the point, faith is never meant to be easy. It is always meant to require trust. To have faith for what we have already done is to not have faith at all. But to have faith for where we have never been before is the challenge. To take the risk, to make the jump, to put it all on the line, this is the call of the pioneer.

The truth is, without trust, faith is just stupidity. Every God dream looks ridiculous in the natural. It goes against every fibre of logic, every strain of reason, and every thought of common sense. But when faith kicks in, we stop trying to understand how things are going to work; we start to trust that God can make it happen. Scripture tells us that in our weakness, He is made strong. And that's because when we come to our end, this is where God begins.

In Hebrews 11, we are reminded that faith is the substance of things hoped for. It is evidence of the things unseen. Facts say, when I see it, I will believe it. But faith says, when I believe it, then I will see it. As believers, we are not people who walk by fact; we walk by faith. We don’t walk by what we see; we walk by what is unseen. We might not be able to see this happening, but I trust that if God said it, He will provide it.

QUESTIONS:

1. What are some of the limitations to my faith, and why do I allow them to limit me?

2. In what areas do I need to start trusting God in?