What is faith?  The bible says that faith is the “substance of things Hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen” and that it’s IMPOSSIBLE to please God with out it. But how do we get it, or build it? The Bible says in Romans 10:17 “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Notice that it doesn’t say that faith comes by God revealing your entire future to you. If God was to reveal to you every plan that He has for you for the rest of your life, when it will happen, who it will happen with or too, why it happens and all the results, it would never require you to have faith in Him and trust the fact that He does actually have a plan for you and that He will also bring that plan to pass IN HIS TIME! 

 Faith is Trust in God.  Faith is taking the next step even if it looks like there is no where to step.  I can remember a few years ago I was in Daytona Beach doing a spring Break outreach and I was sitting by the pool with a friend. He was telling me how He was believing God for direction and how he wished that God would just give him “the blue-prints” for His life. That way He could just get up every morning and look at the plan that God drew out for that day and simply walk it out.  God sometimes uses simple, but sorta silly analogies with me.  We were sitting by the pool, literally a few feet from the edge, and on the other side of the pool deck directly across from us was a tall wall seperating the pool and hotel from the hotel next door.  I told my friend, see that Hotel over there, I said lets suppose for a moment that hotel is the will of God for your life. If you got up from where we are sitting right now and locked your eyes on that Hotel and took off running what would happen?  He said “Well duh, I ‘d get there.” But I reminded him  of our surroundings and where we were sitting and what was between us and that Hotel.   Look if He had gotten up and took off running with His eyes fixed on that Hotel, he would have first tripped over the pool ledge and ended up in the deep end of the pool.  Once He got out of the pool, assuming he could swim, He would then have to deal with that tall wall that seperated our pool and hotel from the other Hotel which represented “the will of God for His life.” There were a number of different obstacles he was going to have to deal with and get through before He ever made it.

 God’s word tells us that every step of a righteous man is ordered of the Lord.  God will drop the vision in our heart and we must keep it there and pray for it and believe it will come to pass in his time.  If we trust God, God will direct every step we take, so that we don’t end up falling into every trap and obstacle that lyes between us and the vision God gave us.  Obstacles don’t change the vision, they are designed to require us to put our trust in Him. Because we know that on our own, we can’t make it. If all we do is run straight for the vision and don’t allow God to work out each step, we will trip and hinder ourselves and ultimately cause a lot of wasted time. 

 I love Pastor Rodney Howard Brownes testimony of coming to America with only $300.  In the natural that is crazy. NO one in there right mind comes to a new country with a wife and three small children with only $300.  But if I have learned anything from Pastor Rodeny Howard Browne, it’s “HAVE FAITH!”  When God dropped the vision to come to America in his heart, Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne tried a few times in the natural to come, but the timing in the natural was not right, it seemed like the doors would close every time he tried.  But when the word of the Lord came and the doors opened, He went.  The funny thing is, that in the natural the circumstances didn’t seem favorable. Not many people were behind it and they didn’t have a lot of money. But the word of the Lord is the word of the Lord. Pastor knew it was time to Go.  There are so many parts of this story, but the long and short of it is, God opened the door in His timing, directed their steps, provided for the family and the rest is history.  And now today I am typing and you are reading this blog because of this ministry.  When you obey God and trust Him and have faith in Him, get ready because He is gonna use you greatly!