1 Samuel 14:6 – Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.”
“It may be…” Did you catch that? Jonathan’s entire plan, a plan that risked his life, was based on the fact that “it may be that the Lord will work for us.” Wow! Jonathan didn’t wait until he had 100% certainty to take a step of faith. He acted based on a maybe … on nothing more than a hope that God would save. He had no doubt that God could save “by many or by few,” but he wasn’t sure that God would save by few in this circumstance. Jonathan could have been walking into his death.
I don’t know about you, but if I am going to risk my life, I’d really like a little more than a “maybe.” In fact, if I’m honest, I want complete, 100%, absolute, without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, voice-from-the-Lord certainty before I go out and put my life on the line. But that just reveals my lack of faith. Because while certainty might be safer and sometimes even wiser (in a worldly sense), certainty just isn’t the stuff that faith is made of. The biblical definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Then in 2 Corinthians 5:7, we are encouraged to “walk by faith, not by sight.” You see, biblically speaking, faith is made up of the stuff that is not seen… it is the stuff that we can’t prove without a shadow of a doubt. It is the type of thing that you hope for, but you don’t have. And this means that we don’t need absolute certainty in order to have faith … in fact, if our goal is certainty, we may never arrive at faith.
Maybe we need to be more like Jonathan in our faith. Don’t wait for certainty before acting. God has placed a calling on your life. Do you know exactly what that is without a shadow of a doubt? No. But that is ok. Can you act anyway? Yes! That’s what it means to walk by faith. Let’s take one of those steps today!
Josh Rose
Discipleship Pastor