by My body was aching as I crawled across the floor painting moulding along the bottom of the wall and I wanted to quit and forget the job. Deep inside, there was an encouragement that kept me going. Dad was whispering in my ear (although he is thousands of miles away) saying “You can do this. Keep going.”
Over the years, I have become extremely thankful to have skills to complete tasks necessary around our house. While painting recently, I thought about Dad teaching me to hammer a nail, use various kinds of saws, paint, plumbing, gardening, even put my own worm on my fishing hook, and the list could go on.
My personal favorite thing Dad taught me was how to split wood. I loved using the iron wedge and tapping it into the wood and swinging the sledgehammer down on the wedge and hearing the ‘kurching’ sound. It was awesome watching the wood split down the grain.
Where am I going with all this? My Earthly Father prepared me for things in life I needed to know in order to survive life’s trials and difficulties.
When we first moved to New Zealand, I got up on a Monday morning to start the fire in the wood stove. My two young girls gathered around the stove and looked up at me with their inquisitive, childish faces and said, “Mommy, do you know how to start a fire?” I was so thrilled to be able to say, “Yes. Let me tell you a story about all the years I helped Pop Pop split wood, carry wood, start fires, and keep our house warm.”
My Father had prepared me for a task that I did not know I would need much later in life. Chopping wood and maintaining a fire was a skill I would need, 20 years later, to heat my house in New Zealand.
Over the years, I have accomplished many tasks that included hammers, saws, painting, etc. Recently, it occurred to me how my Earthly Father had prepared me for life so I could persevere and survive. At the same time, it occurred to me how my Heavenly Father has prepared (and still is preparing) me to persevere and survive through life’s abundant trials and difficulties.
How does our Heavenly Father prepare us?
Steps of Faith
I never questioned what my Earthly Father taught me. As a child, I probably moaned and complained at times about the duties my Father gave to me, but I never once thought “Why is Dad teaching me this?”
Although we may not understand what our Heavenly Father is teaching us, and we may complain; we should never question his motives. He has our best interests at heart. God knows what we need to persevere through life.
I believe God teaches us to take one step of faith at a time. Just like my Earthly Father did not give me a saw to use as a little child, but he gave me a hammer and some nails to hammer into a board. As I got older, he gave me a saw. Our Heavenly Father is the same. God will give us small steps of faith and then he might give us a big step of faith to test the skills he has been teaching us.
Let me give some examples.
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Not Seeing is Believing
My first big step of faith was coming to New Zealand for 6 months to fill in for another missionary family. A few weeks before we were supposed to leave the US, we did not have enough money. Me, being the wife, started worrying. I said to my husband, “How are we going to do this? How can we travel to the other side of the world for 6 months and not have enough money to survive on?”
My husband responded, “What do you want me to do? We have the plane tickets. We cannot really cancel. What should we do?”
I replied, “No, we can’t cancel. We need to go. I know God will supply, but I just can’t see how on paper.”
That was my problem. I could not see the money in the bank. That is where faith stepped in; but I did not realize it until we came back to the US after the 6 months and God had taken care of everything. I thought, “How did we made it?” I could not figure it out on paper. Then I realized God had put me through my first BIG step in faith. Wow! “He was amazing and I am so glad we did not cancel our trip.”
Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
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My Heavenly Father knows what I need before I know what I need.
Way before I grew up, My Earthly Father (and Mother) knew what skills I would need to survive in this
world. Our Heavenly Father also knows what we need to survive before we do. He knows if we need a major trial to teach us skills we will need later in life.
If I had never gotten on the first plane to New Zealand because of finances, how would I have seen my Heavenly Father provide and do a miracle that I could glean from later in life? And trust me, “I have had to look back at this miracle many times to help me have faith in my Heavenly Father that he knows best for me and that he will provide for me.”
So, trust your Heavenly Father. No matter what you may be going through, he has a reason for it that you may not see until years down the road.
Matthew 6:8 “…for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
This year, I have had 2 cancer surgeries. “Why? I do not know. What the future holds? I do not know. But I do know that my Heavenly Father is teaching me something. Sometimes I am not the best student, but God is teaching me something.”
Our Lord knows what we need now and what we need in the future. God knows what he needs to teach us now so we can make it through future events in our life. He knows what we need before we do.
I could talk about many more things and give many more examples in my life, but by now it should be obvious that we need to have faith in our Heavenly Father because he knows what is best for us and
he knows what he needs to teach us to persevere through life.
In conclusion, be a good student. Examine your life. “Is he having you take little steps of faith? Or is he putting through a big step of faith? Look at your difficult trials. Maybe God has taught (or is teaching) you something you will need in the future.”
Here is a verse to end with and ponder:
Luke 12:27-28 “Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?”
Here is a song (by Robert Emmett Winsett, 1918) to be encourage by:
I care not today what tomorrow may bring
If shadow or sunshine or rain
The Lord I know ruleth o’er everything
And all of my worry is vain
Living by faith
In Jesus above
Trusting confiding
In His great love
From all harm safe
In His sheltering arms
I’m living by faith
And feel no alarm…
