Faith doesn’t always look like I want it to look.  It has appeared, in recent days and months, like the approach of a dream.
Today, it looks like a long, empty tunnel with none of the details I’m looking for.
Because I see less, is it less real?  Maybe it’s more real since its very definition states that it is the evidence of things unseen.  Do I only believe when the picture is painted clearly and I can smilingly step into the dream and then declare my “faith”?
Or is it, perhaps, a bit more vague.  A lot messier.  More like a wrestling match between what I expect and what is best for me.
Do I really trust?  When push comes to shove do I let go of hope? When plans shift the ground under my feet, do I run for the hills?
Honestly, at the moment of writing, I’m debating.  Because I have to tell you the ground feels shaky.
We listed our house based on the dream that looked like a farm we thought God had given us.  That farm now has a pending sale.  It’s not our sale.  We are still treading water here in Limbo-land.  Cleaning the house for strangers who find our house too small or too big or too, I don’t know, probably too clean.
So……..now what?  Isn’t that the question we, who are wrestling, ask?  So, You Who knows what’s best…now what?
Though I know that sounds irreverent, it is in no way meant that way.  I really know my God has a plan.  He always adds on to the dream–never diminishes it.  He can see things I cannot.  He has my best in mind.
So………now what?

Faith most times has fear pulling up the rear.

Ask Moses as he stood facing a sea with both the fear of millions demanding an answer and an army hunting him.
Ask David facing a really scary giant (and a lion and a bear) with a stone or four in his pocket.
The stories wouldn’t be so exciting without that need for a bigger plan.
So, I guess I’m right where I’m supposed to be.  Tamping down the fear.  Girding up with truth.  Expecting something.  Just don’t know what it is yet.
Like my husband reminded me.  We’ve been here before.  Sleeping in a Walmart parking lot just an hour from home in a broken-down RV  wondering what the heck we were thinking to bring our family on this crazy journey!  And the next night, not two hours from home in a yet-again broken-down RV with even less money than the nowhere-near-enough we had the day before in our account and everything seemed to be screaming, “GO BACK!!! It’s not too late yet!  GO HOME where it’s safe and predictable!  What if you fail?  What if you heard God wrong?  GIVE UP!!”
What if we had?!  We would have missed out on the biggest story of our lives!  We would have missed seeing God provide resources like manna straight from His very hand!  We would have let doubt steal our opportunities to brag about the gobs of love flung at us every day from One Who had a plan that we could just not yet see!
So, for now, I’ll just trust in the unseen.  Heck, a blank canvas is a lot more exciting than no canvas, right?