A Giant Leap of Faith

Some personal reflection today . . .

For those of you familiar with the Strengths Finder test (http://www.strengthsfinder.com/), I am an Achiever. Achievers work long and hard to accomplish their goals, and they want to do their jobs well. They find great value in this, and enjoy working alongside other hard workers.

I also have strengths in Ideation (concepts and visualization), Learner, Futuristic, and Input (research). These are all very strong as well.

I think that God has used these strengths in me to accomplish some good things. However, it is easy for me to overly rely upon my ability to work hard to achieve, to learn, to plan for the future, in order to "achieve" some spiritual goal.

Sometimes, though, God leads us in ways that we cannot prepare for. We cannot study our way into, nor work our way out of. Abraham's call to go to some land that God would lead him to, for instance, fits this bill. Abraham could do no research on the place to which he was being called--God didn't tell him. He could not envision the future--there were no hints. He could not work hard to do the job better--he didn't know what he was supposed to do.

I am good at having faith in God when I can be a partner, working as he has made me. And I can have faith that God does great things in others, and that he is active in the world in ways I cannot understand. I believe that the Spirit has gone out into the world before us.

I suppose I have not been often tested on trusting God in my own life when I cannot see the way forward, when I cannot achieve or plan. Dropping out of medical school, with some vague idea of doing ministry, was the closest thing to this. I wonder what God has in store for me . . . Whenever we have not been tested in an area, watch out! God will shape us.