Sometimes people in Scripture get motivated to trust God in remarkable ways when they grow frustrated with the brokenness of a fallen world.
Nehemiah could not tolerate the idea of Jerusalem being in ruins. He was moved to risk a king’s displeasure and lethal opposition to rally God’s people.
David could not tolerate a pagan Philistine giant taunting the God of Israel. He was moved to risk his life in the name of his God.
Elijah could not tolerate the barbaric practice of pagan idolatry. He was moved to take on all the prophets of Baal single-handedly.
Even in the world today, it is often at the point where we are frustrated by the gap between fallen reality and our sense of God’s desires that we are moved to action in a cause greater than ourselves.
An outstanding example of this was a woman named Henrietta Mears. Miss Mears taught college-age, single young people for decades at Hollywood Presbyterian Church. She was a formative influence on the life of a whole generation of Christian leaders including Billy Graham, Bill Bright, former Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson, and hundreds of others. She was frustrated at not being able to give her students first-rate material to educate them, so she began a little publishing enterprise out of a garage. It grew into Gospel Light Publishers, one of the most effective Christian publishers of its day.
Henrietta was frustrated because she knew so many Christians living in crowded Los Angeles who needed someplace to withdraw and be with God outdoors where they could hear Him better. So she drove up into the San Gabriel Mountains and found what she thought would be the perfect location. She talked to God about how much it was needed. Then she talked to the man who owned it, and although he hadn’t been inclined to sell it, he never really had a prayer. It grew into Forest Home, one of the premier spiritual conference centers in the country.
Henrietta was frustrated by not having a good single-volume introduction to the Bible that could help her students understand what it was all about, so she wrote one herself that sold hundreds of thousands of copies and continues to sell today, decades after her death. She did all these things and many more, despite doing them in a day when many people thought a woman had no business doing such things.
Time and again she took the step of faith, and time and again the bridge was there.
At the end of her remarkable life, as she lay on her deathbed, someone asked her, “Miss Mears, if you had it all to do over again, would you do anything differently?”
She thought for a moment. “If I had it all to do over again – I would have trusted Christ more.”
Maybe God is calling you to trust Him at some point of frustration in your life. Trust Him. No one ever regretted trusting Christ more – ever.
-John Ortberg, If You Want To Walk On The Water, You’ve Got To Get Out Of The Boat
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