How Is God Challenging You to Step Out in Faith?

By Robin G. Jordan

I firmly believe that God puts people in our lives for a reason. We may not fathom the reason. Their presence in our lives may even upset the orderly routine of our lives. But God has put them in our lives and we should be open to how God may be working in us through them or in them through us. Indeed we and the people God puts in our lives may be one of the many ways that God shows his grace to us and to them.

One of the baristas at the Thorough-Bred Café here on the Murray State University campus watches Snake Discovery when she takes her lunch break. In a recent episode the host of Snake Discovery took an alligator that she had rescued to the pet store to pick out a toy. The alligator had been kept in a 4 x 4 wooden box and fed dog food. As a result of the too small a container the alligator’s growth was stunted. The alligator was also misshapen with an upturned nose and other deformities. The diet of dog food also affected the alligator’s bone development. It kept the alligator’s bones from hardening and made them weak and susceptible to bend or break.

When the barista recounted the episode to me, I thought about how we as Christians can do the same thing to ourselves. We enclose ourselves in a box of our own making, confining ourselves to a set way of doing things, and prevent ourselves from growing spiritually. We become like the alligator stunted and misshapen.

The alligator had no choice. It was put in the wooden box when it was young and was denied an opportunity to grow to its full size, to become what God created it to be. If the alligator had not been rescued from the confinement of the wooden box, it might have lived its entire life in the box.

We, on the other hand, do have a choice. We do not have to live in the boxes in which we enclose ourselves. Indeed God challenges us to free ourselves from these self-imposed limitations and to seek new ways to love him and to love others, to grow as followers of Jesus Christ. As the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, God is at work in us, enabling us to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

Take a moment to consider how you are holding yourself back as a Jesus follower. In what way is God challenging you to step out in faith?

Unlike the alligator you don’t have to wait to be rescued. Jesus has already done that. He has put things right for you with God. He did that for you on the cross. You have a lot going for you. God’s love and mercy. The gift of the Holy Spirit. So what’s holding you back? Break out of that box and become what God created you to be.