At the Edge of Faith
Not sure why encountering God in strange places continues to surprise me after forty plus years of walking with Him, but it does. I have met God in medical exam rooms, washing dirty dishes, gazing out of the open door of a Black Hawk helicopter behind a machine gun toting marine, over the Adriatic Sea; and we even bumped into each other over a grilled hot dog once. But never have I been more surprised than when encountering Him at the edge of my faith.
Standing at the edge of faith we find out not only who we are, but who God is.
Lately, in the midst of a season of recovery from intense suffering, I sense a gentle push within the strengthening coming from God’s hand. The same hand which binds my wounds is at the same time reassuring me it’s safe to trust again.
Yet like a warrior who has seen too many tours of duty, my heart fails at the thought of stepping out again.
At the same time, a timid restlessness whispers a bit of brave into my fearful heart.
What was once an almost fearless spirit of adventure, cowers in the safety of the shadows. Someone who never knew me then, asked me where “she” had gone? Marveling at my past escapades, my friend longed for that part of me to step out again.
Suffering has a way of bringing your greatest fears out of the darkness of the shadows into the light of reality, until even the audacious becomes a timid scarecrow.
But her words prompted a little mental exploration.
Struggling with a good deal of fear, and content to rest on the sidelines, God still revealed the changes, or rather the growth in my faith over the past few months. While at the same time uncovering my reticence at moving forward.
This truth became never clearer than when God met me in yet another unusual place: A simple poem.
Come to the Edge
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
And he pushed,
And they flew.
*Christopher Logue (1926 – 2011), an English poet known for his short, pithy and often political poems.
The charm of this poem is in its simplicity. Dismissed at first reading, the haunting remembrance of it stuck with me for days. Unable to recall where I had first seen it, led to much scrambling and searching until I uncovered it yet again.
This time, God spoke the words into the depths of my insecure soul. Dubious of testing the legs of my newly fortified faith, I resisted the ever-clearer call.
Until, realizing He led me to the edge of my faith, not so I would fall, but so I could once again fly. Yet another season of suffering stripped away layers of self-sufficiency, inviting me instead into a closer embrace within Christ’s unfailing love.
“The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.”
Apart from complete trust and reliance on Christ, I remained hopelessly weighed down by self-sufficient, control seeking fear. Under which I would never soar above the trials and snares of this life.
Coming to the edge of my faith, freed of the burden of performance and the fear of failure, I found freedom in a Love I neither could earn nor maintain, and therefore would never lose.
And in that moment, I stopped looking down, but rather looked up; and He pushed, and I soared.
If you enjoyed reading this post, there’s more! Sign up for my monthly newsletters; a little slice of serenity delivered right to your inbox! As my “Thank-you” you will receive my FREE “Hope in Hard Times Guide” for signing up!
