The Danger Zone of Faith
Pray
I would like to talk a little bit this morning about the journey that we have been through since God called us to go to Slovakia. As I have just mentioned we will be moving on the 16th September 2006.
Before I do that I just want to read a passage of scripture about somebody’s life that I can relate to at the moment.
Genesis 32:22-32
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.
24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
26 Then the man said, Let me go, for it is daybreak. But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me.
27 The man asked him, What is your name? Jacob, he answered.
28 Then the man said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.
29 Jacob said, Please tell me your name. But he replied, Why do you ask my name? Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.
31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.
In this passage of scripture we find Jacob is going to meet his estranged brother. Like most brothers, Jacob and Esau fought as children. However due to Jacob’s trickery Esau had wanted to kill him. Jacob spent most of his life running away from his problems, but here we see a man who was about to face them.
He is also a man with a promise upon his life. A few chapters earlier, in Genesis 28:10-15, God promises to Jacob that his descendents would become a great nation. It is in the passage that we have just read that we see Jacob start to enter into that promise and his name is changed.
Entering that promise wasn’t easy, in fact Jacob had to fight for it. He had to enter a ‘Danger Zone’, the ‘Danger Zone of Faith’.
I want to relate Jacobs situation to the one that Liz and myself have found ourselves in as we have journeyed towards our calling.
As I have already mentioned it was four years ago that we first went to Slovakia on a short term mission trip. We have returned 3 times since and God has given us a continually growing love for the church, the town and the nation.
12 months ago we each individually felt that God was calling us to move their as missionaries. It was a very interesting time. We wanted to make sure that what we were doing was in God’s will, not least because Liz was pregnant at the time.
God confirmed it through a number of different ways that it was the right thing to do. We also spoke to our church, our family, and the leaders of churches in Slovakia and each time God confirmed that this was the right move to make.
There were a number of things that still made that decision difficult. Liz had a music business that was going well and I was enjoying my job as a police officer and training police officers. Of course there was also the thought of leaving our family behind.
We still didn’t know what date we should make the move. The one thing that was completely out of our control was the selling of our house. Logically I had decided to wait until we had a buyer for the house and then to set the moving date.
We put our house on the market at the beginning of this year and just waited for something to happen. We priced it fairly and I expected it to sell within a reasonable time. At first we had a little bit of interest and then nothing.
At this point I listened to a tape by a person called Ian Green. The tape was actually from a conference in 1992. It was all about entering into Spiritual danger zones. One of the danger zones he spoke about was the Danger Zone of Faith.
When we listened to the tape we knew that God was calling us to take a step of faith and just to set a date for us to move out. That is exactly what we did, the 16th September. I had to give my notice in at work accordingly.
The reason that this was a step of faith was because I knew that if the home didn’t sell, and I had finished my job then it would mean financial disaster. I would be paying a large mortgage on my house over here, I would have to rent a property over there, and my outgoings would be 3 or 4 times my incomings. I would have no way of supporting my family.
I stepped out in faith… and nothing happened.
I started to feel like Jacob, clinging on to God. 3 or 4 months went by and we hadn’t had any interest in the house at all. They had already found the person to replace me at work and I was starting to train them up and handover the job.
I would like to say that I was full of faith, but the truth is that I was starting to get very anxious. I felt like Peter must have felt. I had stepped out from the boat, but now I was starting to sink.
At this point I really started to pray and fast… and still nothing happed.
I knew that it normally takes around 8 weeks for a house to go through and it was almost exactly 8 weeks away from the 16th September when a young couple came to see our house and bought it.
Sometimes when we step out in faith we have to struggle all night before we are blessed. That is why stepping out in faith is a Danger Zone. Sometimes God really does test that faith.
The danger zone of faith can also be painful. The hardest thing about this move, for Liz and I, is not leaving our jobs or our home. It is not even leaving the church or the town that we have grown up in. The hardest thing is the fact that we are taking our little daughter away from our family.
We both come from very close families. A couple of months ago I was at my mothers home when she was playing with Jessica. My mother has three other grandchildren from my brother and she loves them all dearly. Each year she takes them on a train at Christmas to see Father Christmas. She forgot for a moment that we wouldn’t be here and was telling Jessica excitedly how she was looking forward to taking her as well this year. It broke my heart to remind her that she wouldn’t be able to as we would be in another country.
The danger zone of faith can be very painful.
Jacob discovered this. After wrestling with God all night, God touched Jacob’s hip. It was either broken or dislocated, and he never walked the same again.
For Liz and I, going to Slovakia is our entering into the danger zone of faith. We have had promises of God upon our lives, just as Jacob had, and we believe that this is the start of us starting to see those promises come to pass.
They may be people here who are in the same position. You have had a promise upon your live for some time. I believe that God is calling some of you to step into the danger zone of faith.
For you that probably won’t be God calling you to another country, or though it might be. But it will definitely be God moving you into a new area spiritually in which you need to leave your comfort zone.
The danger zone of faith sometimes means that we have to struggle with God all night before we are blessed. It sometimes means that we have to endure painful experiences. But let me say this, God is a God who is faithful to His promises. As you step out in faith, He will not let you down.
Ian Green said this; ‘Unless you enter the danger zone of faith, you will only ever listen to other people’s stories; you will never have any of your own.’
It is nice reading of the people of faith in the Bible, or reading a book or listening to a testimony about somebody’s life, but God wants you to have stories of your own.
It is only when Jacob entered the danger zone that his name changed. He became Israel, the father of a great nation. God wants to spiritually change your name. I want to encourage you to be bold, and enter into the danger zone of faith.
