While we were going through the motions of our bedtime ritual, I was helping my 4 YO brush his teeth, and my 7 YO (who had just finished brushing his teeth) was wiping his hands and mouth with his wash rag. He then just stopped and stared at me. I noticed out of the corner of my eye his movement had ceased, but I was too caught up in making sure the toothpaste stayed on my youngest son’s toothbrush while also holding steady his little step stool.
I laughed and said, “Yes, you do!
There’s so much you have yet to experience! There are things you have to do and will do as an adult that you could never do as a little kid! Remember when I took your training wheels off your bike? You were so scared that you begged me to keep them on, but I knew you were ready to go faster and the training wheels were holding you back.
Don’t you remember how you were able to go faster and do more things on your bike once you took the training wheels off?
I said, “That’s how it is growing up. You enjoy the training wheels when you need them, but man, what you can do when the wheels come off!
I squeezed him tightly and said (while also being impressed with his extending the metaphor), “I’ll watch you ride as long as I can, and then I’ll wait for you to meet me in heaven.”
The funny thing is those worries about the future don’t just happen with children.
How often are we afraid to make a move or afraid to take a risk simply because of our fear of the unknown and the probability of a negative outcome? And, why is the NEGATIVE unknown always what we focus on and what we use to paralyze us? The POSITIVE unknown has a 50% chance of happening too??!!
God doesn’t want us to be feeble in our plans or afraid to make a move. He tells us to trust HIM. Hebrews 11:1 (KJV) tells us our faith is our evidence of what we hope for (even though its unseen) as well as the substance of it. What is substance? Dictionary.reference.com defines substance as “that of which a thing consists: physical matter or material.” In other words, our faith is the physical matter or material of what we hope for and our evidence of what we hope for.
Huh? Usually, we don’t think of our faith as evidence of what we hope for because often we struggle with faith. But, we struggle because we forget our faith isn’t in faith. Our faith is in God. And, because we know God is omnipotent and can do all things, our faith in Him is the evidence of what we hope for coming to pass.
Changes up your thinking doesn’t it? Our proof of those things we hope for isn’t when what we’ve hoped for actually comes to pass. Our proof of what we’re hoping for comes before we even see what we’ve hoped for because our faith in God is our proof (and the reason we can even have hope).
So, let go of the training wheels and move forward in what God has laid on your heart. Pray for wisdom and direction, but remember you are hopeful BECAUSE of your faith and that’s all the evidence you need.