My pastor from church sends out a daily text to a number of people, a little snippet or thought for the day to encourage and equip the reader. One of last weeks texts included this quote from Willis Whitney – “Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to; all they need is one reason why they can.”
As I read it, it really struck home to me and challenged me big time. Even now as I write this blog I know that I need to go for a training swim as part of my Grand Challenge later in the year but hundreds of excuses are flying through my mind as to why I shouldn’t head to the gym and swim at least 60 lengths.
Often we know that we should share our faith with our work colleagues, guys in the gym, mates in the pub and even our family members but when it comes to it we can all think of thousands of reasons not to.
“What if they laugh at me?”
“What if they ask me a tricky question that I don’t know they answer to?”
“They wont listen anyway!”
“The probably wouldn’t be interested anyway!”
These are just some of the obvious ones that immediately spring to mind, I could go on and on with excuses.
But, as Whitney says in the quote above we only need only need one reason as to why we can and that reason is faith. Throughout scripture we read about ordinary men doing extraordinary things all because of their faith. They knew that with God all things are possible, not in their own strength but in His.
One my favourite portions of Scripture is Hebrews 11, the faith hall of fame, hear we read about spiritual giants and the great things that they accomplished, all because of their faith in God. Its inspiring reading and its my go to passage when the task ahead of me seems too big.
Not only do we have faith that enables to do amazing things, we also have permission from Jesus to go and join him in the adventure. As we read in the Great Commission, Jesus confirms his authority and gives us His permission to go out into the whole world.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20
So lets be inspired by the faith of the great men of Scripture and use faith as our one reason as to why we can.
I am off for that swim!
