I have a confession of sorts to make: It is frequently easier to tell someone what they should do than to actually do it for yourself. No surprise, huh? You all have known this for years (as have I) but recent circumstances have led me to a fresh wrestling with a question that I'd like to pose to you...and I welcome your input and feedback.
Here's the question: Where is the line between "faith" and just being "stupid"? It's usually not hard to discern this in hindsight, but doing it in "real time" can pose quite a challenge. I could easily recount many times where a step of faith has been taken and there have been some tremendous rewards/benefits/blessings from doing so. But I can just as easily remember times where I was just plain stupid (upon looking back) and brought about some pretty significant challenges (actually, that's an understatement - some really hard things had to be dealt with).
As a pastor, I'm quite familiar with the Bible's teaching (and absolutely believe it) that rather we make the "right" or "wrong" choice, God is more than capable of using it, redeeming it, and making it into something pretty amazing. But truthfully, I'd rather not "screw up" in the first place! So how do you know where the line is? How can I make sure I'm making a true "faith" decision and not being plain "stupid"?
As you might have guessed, I'm trying to make some decisions right now that, to me, appear to be fairly significant, and I want to get it "right" so badly. One of the ironies of this predicament is that while it hasn't arisen recently, it has been accentuated recently through my very own preaching (as the Lord has led me). Believe me, if my goal had been to avoid dealing with this, I wouldn't have asked the Lord (as always) for help in my sermon preparation...I'd have just picked something "safe" that everyone else needed to hear!
Sorry - you're not going to get any more details than that on my situation, but I'd love to hear from you. God has directed me so often from people, places and situations that were "off the radar" - so He may just want to use you right now to help me. Go figure! And I'm the one who's supposed to have the answers! Email me at necchurch@netins.net - I promise that I'll respond and let you know how this all turns out. "For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7).
