8 December 2021

Do you find it hard to risk?

Aubrey was about to step out of the car. I yelled out to her to stop. “There is danger below your foot. Hop back in and come out the other door.” This six-year-old little girl did not hesitate especially because of the tone, the sound of my voice. There was a sense of urgency, desperation, and danger in my voice.

As she got out on the other side of the car, she asked, “What’s wrong?” I started to describe to her the danger as she came around the side of the car to see for herself. The drain in the road was missing part of the grate over the top of it and her little foot may have got stuck in between the bars.

I marvelled at her immediate response. I congratulated her on listening and responding well to my suggestion to the dangerous situation. She had not seen it, but I had. She did not hesitate and query my direction to her.

Do we do that?

Respond without hesitation to a direction from God? Do we even hear Him speaking to us? Are we listening? Do we change direction and go through a different door if God told us to?

In a way that is what faith is.

Risking, trusting, believing in a God who has our perfect interests at heart. Did you read that last line? Not just our best interests, but perfect plans for our lives and for our hearts – our fulfilment, our purpose in life and for our happiness.

I am reading a wonderful book at the moment. My second read of it in the last few years. I was drawn to it again. A true story of the life of Angus Buchanan. A story of a farmer who risked everything for God.

Now I know God gave Him the grace to risk, but He has to respond to that invitation. Over the years Angus grew in his trust, belief, commitment to the Lord and so His risks, his decisions about his life, his family, his farm increased in the faith decisions he had to make.

One year during a drought, he felt God ask him to plant potatoes. A dumb move. Potatoes need water and the weather has predicted a huge drought season for their farming area in South Africa. He was the only ‘stupid’ farmer who planted potatoes that year. When the ground looked so dry and he felt desperate about the crop surviving, he connected together reticulation and every time he did this and was about to turn on the tap. God sent rain.

And every time he repented before the Lord for his lack of trust in him.

But his determination grew to believe God whatever the cost. It was all or nothing. That year Angus harvested a bumper crop. The biggest potatoes he had ever seen and because he was the only farmer who had planted some, he had the biggest income from them as well. But do you know what is even more amazing? It was the FIRST time he had ever planted potatoes.

When I read that I nearly fell off my seat.

I thought he had planted them heaps of times before and knew what to do and what not to do. HE DID NOT HAVE A CLUE!

That’s what God does, throws us sometimes into the deep end of the waters of trust and keeps us afloat, then teaches us (those who are willing to learn) to swim and get stronger as the waves often get more difficult to cross.

Oh, what faith!

As I continue to read his story, my faith grows in my estimation of my God. How good and great He is in caring for us.

Angus’ potatoes story caught the imagination of Christians all over the world.

And this comment from Angus spoke to me so much…

“Now you can see for yourself that we serve the living God.”

Sad to say but the enemy puts inside of my mind, “Oh God will do it for Angus but not for you! You are too weak. Made too many mistakes. You don’t have enough faith!”

I sit there a little dejected at first. Then God reminds me:

When I am weak. He is strong. I don’t need to do it all on my own. It’s not my doing. It is His!

No, I’m not trying to grow potatoes in a drought.

But I am trying to proclaim Him, JESUS, to the world that I live in. I am trying to plant seeds of hope and life in a place that is dry, arid and apathetic. I need to try and plant the seeds, fertilise the soil that the seeds are in and trust in God for the water and the growth. Trust in him for the crop, the harvest of potatoes, oops sorry – the harvest of people.

It is truly worth the risk as I walk in faith with my God.

Where do you need to walk in faith?

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups. If you would like more information please click HERE.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Do you respond without hesitation to a direction from God?

Do you change direction and go through a different door if God told you to?

Where do you need to walk in faith?