The hardest part of trusting God isn't the first step. It's the long walk after, before we know the outcome. For instance, when I lived in Boston, I spent a year living in Dorchester, in a neighborhood where it wasn't safe to be outside after dark. I once asked one of my roommates why he'd moved there. He told me it was a "leap of faith." He believed God would provide for him, so he summoned the courage to move in and serve the community. It seemed foolish at the time. How can ministering to children in a small house church change anything? But sixteen years later, that crazy choice gave him opportunities to reform entire criminal justice systems in partnership with academics and politicians. We never know God's plans for our small steps of faith.
John 4:43-54
After two days he left there for Galilee. (Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him because they had seen everything he did in Jerusalem during the festival, since they also had gone to the festival. He went again to Cana of Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a certain royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him and pleaded with him to come down and heal his son, since he was about to die. Jesus told him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe." "Sir," the official said, "come down before my boy dies." "Go," Jesus told him, "your son will live." The man believed what Jesus said to him and departed. While he was still going down, his servants met him saying that his boy was alive. He asked them at what time he got better. "Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him," they answered. The father realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, "Your son will live." So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was also the second sign Jesus performed after he came from Judea to Galilee.
In this story, John contrasts two ways of approaching Jesus. The Jewish Galileans, who ought to have recognized Jesus as the Messiah, refused to give him such honor. Instead, they welcome him in the hopes of witnessing a miraculous spectacle. At the same time, a royal official—likely an employee of Herod Antipas, and therefore despised as a corrupt, foreign presence—humbly approaches Jesus. Jesus presents the challenge to him: You're only here for the spectacle. But unlike everyone else, this man reveals a genuine faith in God. Without anything to hold on to but Jesus' words, this man walks home empty-handed. If my son had a heart attack at the mall, and the 911 operator said, "You can go home now, the guys in the ambulance will take care of everything" I wouldn't move an inch. I'd stay with my son until he had made a full recovery. Sometimes I wonder if Jesus understands how hard it is to believe in him when we can't see what the disciples saw. But this story proves Jesus was already thinking about us. He gave this father exactly what we have: nothing but his word. No obvious miracle. He just said, "Go, your son will live." The official started a seventeen-mile walk home with faith. He's worth imitating because, like him, most of us live in the awkward tension of his journey home. We've trusted that Jesus is going to take care of us, but we haven't seen the miracle yet. We're somewhere between Cana and Capernaum, hoping that our faith will find fulfillment. This story reminds us that God's answer has already come, even if we're walking home in the dark.
What do you notice about how the royal official responds to Jesus saying, "Go, your son will live"?
Where in your life right now are you somewhere between Cana and Capernaum—trusting God for something you haven't seen yet?
What makes it hardest for you to keep trusting God when you can't see the answer?
Take a five-minute walk outside. As you walk, talk to God about the hardest ways he's asking you to trust him. When you get back, tell a friend what you discussed with God.
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