The City

 Many things spoken and written by blind writer and speaker Jennifer Rothschild have ministered to me. What she relates here does. 

After losing her sight as a teenager, she began to be instructed in the use of a cane. She said she had to learn to live, not by what she couldn't see, but by what the cane told her was there. In the same sense, we need to learn to live not by what we feel or fear, but by what He says. By what He says is there. What is there is Himself. His total faithfulness and His abiding presence. This is the walk of faith.

In Hebrews 11:8, it says of Abraham, father of the Jewish nation, "By faith, Abraham when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place, which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going." I began my walk with Him in 1979. I thought I knew where I was going, but I had no clue. He kept leading me to places that I never thought I'd be. Physically for sure, but even more so in the realm of the Spirit. Too often, I wanted to stay in the realm of the known, but He kept calling me, leading me into the unknown. I didn't always go easily, but He continued to call, to lead, and to invite me into my own inheritance. To trust not in what I think may be there or even see that is there, but in what He says is there. Himself. His life. The land that He has for me. This call doesn't stop with age and it will not stop in death. The path He leads us on stretches into eternity, and though I've never "seen" that place, He tells me it's there. The fullness of my inheritance lies there but I can begin to live in that inheritance now. So too can we all.

Today we may be feeling like Rothschild must have when she was being taught the use of the cane. Our world may have been turned upside down, with circumstances, needs, and challenges that have rendered us, in a sense, blind. We can't "see" what to do next, but His call to us is to not live afraid of what we cannot see, but by what He says is. He IS, and He always will be. We may not know where we're going, but we know that we're going with Him. Faith is knowing that we're always going onward with Him.

Hebrews 11:10 says that Abraham was "looking for the city which has foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God." This is our destination as well. We are born with a yearning for it. We'll never find its fullness here, but here is where the journey starts. All along the way there will be places where we'll be "walking blind," except that we won't be blind at all. He's with us, leading us along. Our having to know all the details doesn't matter. He knows. He'll lead us into His city, to our inheritance. Designed and built by the Father, led there by His Holy Spirit, Home at last.

Blessings,

Pastor O