Stretching Faith

Death of a Car

It was late Sunday evening in June. Driving down the highway, my husband started slowing down. “Why are you stopping?” I’m clearly annoyed.  It’s late and I’m ready to crash. In less than twelve hours I embark on a week long summer camp with a gaggle of kids.

“It’s not me,” the hubs says, “the car is dying.”

His diagnosis was correct. Our precious family car had sputtered to it’s final stop.

That car had seen us through years of car seats, multiple family vacations and one cross-country move.  Not that I’m a terribly sentimental person, but the fact that it was paid-in-full certainly increased my love for it.

To say the cars death was untimely is an understatement.  We weren’t very far down the road of saving for it’s replacement. When we looked at our budget, you could say we were poised for a miracle.

A Faith-Stretching Journey

Little did we know we were on the cusp of a faith-stretching journey for our whole family. You see, we made two important decisions from the beginning.

First, we chose to only pay cash for a car. Not because of the amount of cash we had. Far from it. We decided to pay cash because of how we’ve seen God provide in the past and trust He’ll do the same again.

Second, we chose to involve our kids in the journey. Because we wanted our kids to see what trusting in God’s provision looks like.

Over the course of 7 weeks, our family gathered before bed. Sitting on the floor of our hallway, prayed for a car that fit within the cash we had available to spend. We prayed for transportation to help get where we needed to go throughout the week. With every week that passed, a car was made available for us to use.  And nearly two months later we paid cash for our new-to-us car.

That was a fun day.

The Reward is Faith

As challenging and inconvenient as the process was, the outcome is remarkably rewarding. Over the course of time, our kids watched us make a choice each day. To trust for God’s provision and not our own understanding. As a family, we fought to make a wise choice.  As a family, our faith was stretched. And as a family, we celebrated what God did.

Faith is trusting what you can’t see because of what you can.  My husband and I have learned over the course of our lives that God will provide in ways we need but don’t often predict. And when we wait on Him, the outcome is better than we can create on our own.

We want our kids to learn this same practice in their own lives. We want them to learn the practical application of trusting in what you can’t see because of what you can.

When we invite our kids to participate with us as we exercise our own faith, we allow them to take part in a story that helps them stretch and develop their own faith.

Where is God asking you to trust Him?  How is He inviting you to trust what you can’t see because of what you can?