Walk by Faith

Somewhere in the archives of my memory is a person with a Seeing Eye dog.  I cannot recall how I know them or even what circumstances I remember them in, but the memory is clear.  I see his face, round and smiling, the dog on his lead is a Golden Retriever and his coat is shining a clear as a noon day sun.  The man holds this special lead, one of those bar type ones that keeps the dog close to his master.  In my memory I see the man’s grip on the lead and I recall one very small, but extremely important detail, his grip is loose, casual you would even say.  Here this man is who has no vision of his own, fully relying on the trained dog’s eyes to keep him safe, take him where he needs to go, warn him when danger is approaching, even help him retrieve necessary items of survival and his grip on the one thing that provides form him is loose. 

One would think the blind man would be holding on for dear life, white-knuckled, fingernails imbedded into the palm of his hand type grip that says “So help me, don’t you take off or I am in a hurt.”  I mean without this very dog his life would be total chaos and mass confusion, dangerous situations lurking around every corner, survival would become this man’s way of life.  But the blind man’s hand in my memory has a just a casual grip, like holding a dear friends hand.  In fact is this lead not liken to that very thing, a dear friends “hand?”  The dog is after all his most trusted companion and friend.  Holding on loosely, living by faith his friend will not let him down, he trust his faithful companion with his very life. 

So how about you, how’s your grip on the lead?  Are you white-knuckled hanging on for dear life, worried at every step your life source is going to take off?  Leave you with it all to figure out on your own?  Do you even have a hold of the lead at all or are you clamoring about living in total chaos? 

 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” – Hebrews 11:1

What we do not SEE!  The blind man saw nothing, his vision was completely absent, yet he had faith to know his dog would take care of him.  Like him, we do not SEE our heavenly father, but we must have confidence He will take care of us.  Our needs will be met, our prayers will be answered, not necessarily how WE want them answered, but how the Master will, he knows what is best for us.  The dog will not lead the blind man astray and our Father will not do the same to us.  The path for which we have been called is clear before HIS eyes, we just have to pick up the lead and follow, by FAITH!!  Our vision of our future will fail, HIS vision of our future will prevail!!

There is a very important lesson in the blind man’s grip, it is the trusting dependence of knowing his dog will be there, he doesn’t have to hold on for dear life, he just has faith the dog will lead him in the correct path, BUT he does have to pick up the lead. 

Walk by Faith!!