Written by Michael Kelley, Guest Contributor
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Hebrews 11:6
My children have never had to read a map.
Oh, they’ve seen them, but they looked at them like relics in a museum. Paper maps are tools from a bygone day that look good when framed on a wall, but aren’t much use when you have an iPhone. Why use a paper map when you can have turn-by-turn navigation to anywhere in the world at your fingertips?
I imagine you’ve had the same moment I have when thinking about the future, of wishing that God would simply give us step-by-step directions. We could be prepared for what was coming, know in advance what lies before us, and operate with a sense of certainty as we make our way through the years.
But God doesn’t give us a map. And there are some good reasons why He doesn’t.
Here are three of them:
1. God is more interested in who you’re becoming than where you’re going.
We are destination-oriented people. We move through life from place to place, person to person, job to job. One destination to another, always looking for what’s next. But God doesn’t work like that. His highest aspiration is not to get us to a specific job, a specific city, or a specific home, but to conform us to the image of Christ.
Even as God uses us in these specific destinations to extend His kingdom, He also works in us simultaneously. Each of these experiences moves us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to think, feel, and act more like Jesus.
2. Faith is more valuable to God than absolute certainty.
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
Faith is what God prizes the most. It’s the attribute God values more than anything else. Indeed, anything we claim to do for the sake of Jesus and His kingdom must be grounded in and fueled by faith. The fact that we do not have a map means we must operate by faith because we don’t have any other option.
Now, you might argue that faith is a certainty. In the same chapter of Hebrews, the writer says that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1). But what exactly are we sure of? What exactly are we certain of? It’s not that we know the way, as we would if we had a map. No, our certainty is not in our destination but in the One leading us.
Which leads us to the third reason God doesn’t operate in maps:
3. We are not following a map; we are following a Person.
Ultimately, God wants us to follow Jesus. This was, and is, the basic call of Christianity. Jesus simply said to the first disciples and still says to us: “Follow me.” This is a call that overrides any questions, hesitations, or uncertainties we have.
True, we do not know where Jesus is leading.
True, we do not know all, or even most, of what we will encounter.
And true, the road to following Jesus will not be easy. It will require discipline, difficulty, and, above all, faith.
Because if we had a map, why would we need faith?
The truth is that we don’t need a map because we have something better. We have someone leading us who knows the way.
DIG DEEPER
Read “Why Does God Require Faith?” at GotQuestions.org
