FAITH FOR THE JOURNEY. daily meditations on. courageous trust in god CHARLES R. SWINDOLL. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Carol Stream, Illinois

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2 FAITH FOR THE JOURNEY daily meditations on courageous trust in god CHARLES R. SWINDOLL Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Carol Stream, Illinois

3 Visit Tyndale online at TYNDALE, Tyndale s quill logo, and LeatherLike are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Faith for the Journey: Daily Meditations on Courageous Trust in God Copyright 2014 by Charles Swindoll. All rights reserved. Content taken from Abraham by Charles R. Swindoll, published in 2014 by Tyndale House Publishers under ISBN Cover illustration of compass copyright Oleg Iatson/Shutterstock. All rights reserved. Author photograph by David Edmonson copyright All rights reserved. Designed by Nicole Grimes Edited by Stephanie Rische Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP ( Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois All rights reserved. (Some quotations may be from the 2007 edition of the NLT.) Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV ), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ISBN Printed in China

4 Contents Introduction v Trust Full Obedience Put to the Test Reflecting God Prosperity Navigating without a Map Waiting The Almighty One Going Deep The Secret to Prayer The Poison of Impurity The Danger of Rationalization A Cycle of Sin Perfect Timing Fulfillment of the Impossible Unanswered Prayers Consequences

5 Not Alone...69 The Ultimate Sacrifice...73 Beyond Our Expectations Traveling Companions...81 Confirmation...85 Willing to Go...89 Never Too Late...93 Giving While You re Living...97 Finishing Well Friend of God Beyond Your Comfort Zone Believing God s Promises The Next Generation About the Author...121

6 Introduction To finish the moment, to find the journey s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.... Since our office is with moments, let us husband them. R a l p h Wa l d o E m er s o n W e tend to think of faith as something we need only when the future becomes uncertain. After all, when we have a promising career, plenty of money in the bank, and a plausible five-year plan, who needs faith? We exercise faith only when circumstances elude our control or when darkness shrouds the road ahead. That s when we turn to God, asking Him to guide us around any pitfalls we cannot see. That kind of thinking has two fatal flaws. First, faith is not hoping for something to become true. To exercise faith is not to entrust a wish to God. Lord, keep me healthy. Lord, help me earn a good living. v

7 faith for the journey Lord, steer me clear of suffering. Those are things you would say to a genie or a fairy godmother. The Old Testament and especially the story of Abraham s journey with God defines faith as obedience. Faith is doing what God tells us to do, even when His instructions appear dangerous or might cause us to experience loss or suffering. As author Philip Yancey describes it, Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse. Second, faith is not something we use to control future events. Faith is for today. This very moment. The one you re experiencing right now. Faith is asking the question, what does the Lord want me to be doing right now, in this moment? and then doing what we know is pleasing to Him. That s what we see through most of Abraham s nomadic life. In each episode of the patriarch s life story, he had to choose between God s words and some other influence: fear, his own desires, family pressure, danger, greed... the same distractions we encounter today. As you set aside time for these brief glimpses into Abraham s story, forget the past and ignore the future. Become a faithful steward of the present moment. Seek God s will. Hear God s Word. Use these moments to ask what God wants of you, and then just do it. If you do, you will remain on course in your journey toward the best possible future. Chuck Swindoll Fall 2014 vi

8 Trust Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. C o rr i e t e n B o o m Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father s family, and go to the land that I will show you. Genesis 12:1 1

9 faith for the journey God s call of Abram began with an imperative a clear command. God told him to leave his country for a land that He would show him... sometime later. To receive the promised blessings, Abram had to leave behind everything he relied on for safety and provision homeland and relatives and trust that God would honor His commitment. The call he received as a nomad for the Lord was a call to move, a call to go, a call to leave behind the comfortable and the familiar. Put yourself in Abram s place for a moment. You re roughly seventy-five years old, with a wife in her mid-sixties. You ve lived in one place your whole life. You have an established homestead in a familiar city with family and a community you ve known since birth. Suddenly, the Lord appears to you in a manifestation you cannot deny as authentically supernatural, and He tells you to pack up and hit the road for an undisclosed destination. Everything within us recoils from making big changes without thorough planning. Most of us need to see where we re jumping before committing to a leap. But God called Abram to obey this call without complete information. Abram didn t know where he was going, so he couldn t trust in 2

10 charles r. swindoll a well-thought-out, long-range plan. Nevertheless, the Lord gave Abram sufficient information to make a reasonable decision. When Abram encountered the Lord, he knew that God was real. The undeniable echo of God s voice left him no room for doubt. While his neighbors thought he had lost his mind, Abram had good reason to trust in God, even without knowing every detail of the plan. Reflect Has the Lord ever called you to do something without giving you all the details up front? What helps you trust Him, even when you don t have all the information? I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? Psalm 56:4 3

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12 Full Obedience God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will, a will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to. E l i s a be t h E l l i o t [Abram] took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all his wealth his livestock and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran and headed for the land of Canaan. Genesis 12:5 5

13 faith for the journey A fter spending much of his life perhaps from birth in Ur of the Chaldeans, Abram was instructed by God to go to a place to be disclosed later. Sadly, he didn t respond with complete obedience; he obeyed only in part. When he left Ur, Abram brought along his father, Terah, and his nephew Lot. Abram moved in the general direction of Canaan the land God had promised him but he traveled no farther than Haran at first. The text doesn t specify why they stopped there, but I have a theory. The moon god, Sin, whom Abram s family worshiped, had two principle seats of worship: Ur of the Chaldeans and Haran. It wouldn t be hard to imagine that Abram s father, a lifelong devotee of the moon god, couldn t tear himself away from the deity s sanctuary in Haran. When Abram s father decided to linger in Haran, Abram should have bade his father farewell and pressed on to Canaan. Abram also allowed his nephew Lot to tag along, possibly because he viewed Lot as his potential heir, having no son of his own. As the story progresses, however, Lot proves to be an even greater distraction than Abram s father. Life threatening, in fact. 6

14 charles r. swindoll If you know what God wants you to do, obedience isn t complicated. It may be difficult, but it s not complicated. Don t wait any longer for all the details to be worked out. The Lord has given you an opportunity to grow in faith. He wants you to trust in His faithful care and rest in His unfaltering power. The time to obey has come. Now... go! Reflect Is there something you know God has called you to do but you re responding with halfhearted obedience? What s one step you can take today toward full obedience? You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Deuteronomy 6:5-6 7