Crossing the Faith Frontier Requires RELATIONSHIPS
If you want to go fast, go alone. if you want to go far, go together!
So often, in our imaginations of taking bold steps of faith, we see ourselves standing alone, going against the crowd—facing persecution, stepping into darkness, taking on challenges, being the Gladiator or Spartacus or Daniel in the lions’ den.
But that’s not what God intended. He invites you into a life of faith partnership with all sorts of other people, to cross faith frontiers as a team, as a family, as a church.
Now, this requires humility. There is an inner super-hero in all of us who, sadly, surmises, “If I’m going to take a great risk for the kingdom, I at least want to get the credit for it!” So we wait, and we calculate—but we don’t move forward. We don’t want to leverage the gifts or expertise of others.
There’s another even less heroic impulse in us that wants to say, “If I’m going to risk it all, I want to do it my way!” And that too, obviously, is a distortion of our heavenly calling. We aren’t on the journey for our own benefit or satisfaction. We’re crossing frontiers for God’s glory, not our own.
It’s true that moving into a faith frontier with a team will be a different experience than if you had gone on your own. Imagine if Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, had determined not to use the help of anyone else, or had insisted on micro-managing every aspect of engineering and planning. He never would have even left the ground! To go that far, he had to trust a team.
Canadian geese fly north and south across the North American continent every year as a part of their migratory pattern, and their formation is easy to spot—they fly in a V. Scientists have estimated that these geese can sometimes fly up to 70% further together than they could if they went solo. Why?
Because the dynamics of lift, turbulence, and airflow of the V make each goose more efficient in flight. As long as they stick together, they cover more territory. But within the V, each goose has to be willing to defer to the others, and they don’t all get to lead their own way.
What if our greatest limitations are actually self-imposed, and the reason we aren’t moving further ahead in our churches and families for the gospel is because of our own pride? We weren’t designed to be heroes, but rather, servants, partners, and team players. If we fly in formation, we’ll go further for Christ!
We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. In His grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well (Romans 12:5-6 NLT).
God has given each of you a gift from His great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another (1 Peter 4:10).
Crossing our next faith frontier might mean looking at the people around us with fresh eyes. It might mean thinking about how to help them succeed in their journey, even more than worrying about how we’ll succeed on ours. It might mean admitting our own weaknesses so we can lean in to others to compensate. It might mean being more committed to the goal than to who gets the credit for scoring it.
- Who has God put on my life “team” so far, to take the journey of faith with me?
- What have I done in the past month to help my team grow and succeed?
- Am I comfortable not being the hero, or even the leader?
- What holds me back from really believing in and leaning on the people around me?