I had the AMAZING opportunity to minister to a beautiful, godly lifelong friend of mine today. She has always been a great encouragement to me for many years (especially through college), so I so enjoyed returning the favor. I thought I would share with you what I did with her...with some more personal parts deleted, of course:

I guess there are two parts that I feel like God wants me to share with you: faith and knowing and doing His will. If there is ONE thing God has taught me this year, it has been faith--true faith. Not just the use of meaningless words or glorified thoughts--but truly learning to abandon all else to follow Him wherever.

At the beginning of this year, I made a HUGE HUGE HUGE leap of faith into an unknown world. I left my comfortable job because I felt (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that God was calling me to leave. And I didn't know why or how...but I earnestly sought Him in Scripture and through prayer and He revealed His will for that day.

He hadn't directed me as to where I was to go the next week...and quite honestly, the people at my job thought I was crazy for going out on a limb with nowhere to go. But regardless of their opinions, I stepped out on faith (something I had NEVER truly done before) not knowing where I was going to go from there.

I can't tell you how that one step of faith changed my life. It all began with surrender in college. I don't know if you remember me telling you that I prayed that God would do with my life whatever, whenever, and however He wanted to do it, but I did...and I can now look back and see an amazing transformation and journey He's brought me on.

First, I had to learn complete surrender with no reservations. Then I had to learn to step out on faith and that happened almost three years after I surrendered, so it took a while. But when I did, He began to open doors I never thought possible. And now God is teaching me things I never thought I could comprehend or understand.

All that to say...there are so many people in the Bible that we can learn from--so many lives that were changed and people of great faith that have left a legacy behind for us to follow. Hebrews 11 talks about heroes of faith:

* "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God..." (v 3)
* "By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did" (v 4)
* "By faith, Noah, after being warned about what was not yet seen, in reverence built an ark to deliver his family" (v 7)

And so on...but, the one that I am most fascinated with is Abraham. Hebrews 11:8 says, "By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went out to a place he was going to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was going."

By faith Abraham went out having no clue where he was going, but knowing that God had called him to seek the Promised Land. I think as believers, it's hard for us to separate common sense from faith. Common sense is so much more comfortable and while it is good to have, we oftentimes lose sight of what real faith is in the midst of it.

When Abraham was called to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice, there was no other way God could purify his faith than to break him out of his comfort zone and push him to do something that wasn't what he wanted. But because Abraham obeyed, God blessed him.

The greatest lesson I've learned from Abraham's faith in God is that he was prepared to do anything for the Lord no matter what he wanted to do or believed to be "right." I think it's important for us to always be willing to come to the point of giving up our own convictions, traditional beliefs, comfortable lifestyles, understanding and reason to move forward in what He has called us to do.

One other thing I've learned (and then I'll close), is that a life of faith isn't always glorious mountaintops. You already know this since you've been walking with the Lord for many years, but it's always good to hear someone else verbalize it. True faith is constantly tried, tested, and built up, so that eventually the believer is no longer spoiled by common sense, fear of stepping out, and comfort zones, but instead he or she is accustomed to SEEKING, KNOWING, and DOING the will of God by faith without hesitation.