The only way this writer can think of to illustrate the faith of Bro. Abraham is by way of personal testimony;
Fifteen years ago from this writing, the most difficult test of faith I had ever known was set in motion. The details won't matter in 100 years as my mother use to say but it will give foundation to exhorting the faith of Bro. Abraham.
In a word, my life was turned upside down and my heart wrenched out of my chest, stomped and beat. Our home broke up after sixteen years of marriage. My sweet daughter was but six tender years old. The details are heartbreaking and not necessary to this narrative except to say, I thought it is a thing in which I would never recover. I thought I could never be happy again. I loved motherhood in spite of this sorrow but could not enjoy it fully in the way one can who has an "unbroken" home.
The divorce details were six months in hammering out but worth every moment to protect my sweet girl as much as possible. The betrayal was not the hardest though it hurt deeply. The hardest part of the whole ordeal was the separation during the days of his "visitation" with our daughter. I had waited ten long years for the Lord's will to have a child then six years later had to endure "visitation," and on several occasions, for the two weeks allowed under the terms of the settlement.
Alas, visitation years ended a few short years after it began - he just couldn't spare time to come get her. We moved on.
However, less than two years after the breakup, a curious event took place. One day my sweet girl and I were practicing a song because we had been occasionally asked to sing in church.
- First, the song was, "He made a way."
- Second, a phone call - a distraught aunt called to tell me of a message she had heard titled, "Standing on the Brink of a Miracle," a message about baby Moses being put into the crocodile infested waters of the Nile river. I did not understand until years later when I began to put all the pieces together, what the Lord was saying.
- Third, the same day, my ex-husband came to tell us he couldn't get our daughter for visitation because "his wife died.!" To say I was dumbstruck is quite the understatement.
I'm sure Bro. Abraham could not have know the end of his trial of faith as he "went out, not knowing whither he went." I too, could never have seen fifteen years ahead to the life that is now giving you this story of faith.
To continue...
Life moved on. The separations between me and my sweet girl ended but still we were in a barren land, spiritually. One other church was attended after the divorce until a little light began to dawn during this time. We could not stay there but had nowhere else to go. Four years after the divorce we began to drive sixty-one miles one way, three times each week (Sun morning, Sun night and Wednesday night), to a little church the Holy Spirit had led us to. Five years later, we moved to the area. At present, I am still at this little church a total of nine years this summer. (My girl married almost two years ago after much prayer that the Lord would give her "the best He had.")
Just before we moved, however, the Lord sent us to a friend's church almost two hours from home to hear this message; "You've not been this way heretofore." (Joshua 3.4) The preacher said the Lord woke him up to change a series of messages he had been preaching from the book of Jonah to the passage in Joshua 3.4. I don't have to explain to the reader there are no accidents in God's economy. He KNEW we would be there that day and would need to hear these eternal words.
Needless to point out, it was shortly after that message we relocated sixty-one miles after thirty-eight years from the place I had called home. The place I had met and married the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. The place I became a mother to my darling girl. The "miracle" was how my Heavenly Father moved heaven and earth to get us moved and the complete peace and contentment I felt the first few months in our new home. No earthly words can describe my peace. My heart was again whole, content and happy.
"He made a way when there was no way." The miracle was not putting our home back together but showing His child what He could do, when there way no way. My heart was broken, bleeding, raw, hurting, yet somehow moving on because there was nowhere else to go. There were times in my prayer closet I could feel His loving arms around me. Comforting my soul in a way only He can.
Yes, I had misjudged my miracle but by faith I had no choice but to "press forward."
Easy, no. My choice, no. Would I change it? No.
You see, by faith, I've learned to trust Him in a way I never would have, completely, had I not walked through that fire. So, even though I "went out not knowing where (I would be going)," I obeyed and like a child trusts the father's hand it holds, I trusted Him. He knows best.
Just like Bro. Abraham, one can trust His leading. If He has pointed a direction, you had best "set your face like a flint," (Isa 50.7) and go!
