Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

~Andre Gide

This quote goes along perfectly with the Bible definition of faith.

God can see the whole picture, so He knows exactly what needs to be done to bring forth His plans for your life. Because of this, He usually goes about doing things in a totally different way than any earthly person would think to do them.

He might tell you to do things in a certain way that may not make sense to you at the time, because He already has everything worked out and only needs you to be obedient. He wants you to get to the place that you can trust him totally to have your best interest at heart.

Just like the quote above, His plans may mean that you have to give up your comfort zone, or the way you have always done things. Even if you as a Christian do things the wrong way consistently, there is still some comfort in the fact that you know the way things will turn out even though they might be bad.

When you follow God completely, you give Him control of your ship to steer in the direction He chooses. That means that some of the time you will not know your ultimate destination, at least for awhile; but you do have total assurance that in the end you will be steered to the finest ports.

You have to make the decision that you will blindly trust God to have your best interest at heart just for the simple reason that you KNOW He is always working on your best behalf.

An example of this in the Bible would be in Acts 9: 10-19. Ananias was a man who loved God and wanted to be obedient to Him. All of a sudden God spoke to him and told him to go to Straight Street where Paul was staying, lay hands on him, and his sight would be restored.

Now Ananias knew the history of Paul and all the terrible things he had done to the Christians. He had persecuted them mercilessly and tried to annihilate them.

He did not know that a bright light had struck Paul blind and because of this he had made a change of heart. Paul now believed in and would follow God, but Ananias had no way of knowing everything that had happened.

Of course, he reminded God who Paul was and asked Him if he remembered all the horrible things Paul was doing to any Christian who crossed his path.

God told him he already knew, and gave Ananias instructions to obey. He had to make the choice if he would get out of his comfort zone and follow God, or continue to be afraid of Paul.

God had already seen the whole picture and knew all the facts. Ananias just had to come to the place that he could trust God completely with his life. Of course when he followed the instructions of God, he was able to be a part of something great and his name be a part of Bible history.

God takes you away from the shore because He wants to show you a whole new side of Him that you have never seen before. It is a very exciting life to choose to follow where He leads.

You will find yourself capable of doing things that you never thought possible, or desiring to learn things that you never had an interest in before. God wants to mold you and make you into the person that can truly do great and mighty things for Him.

Do not let fear keep you attached to the shore.

Cathy Deaton is the author of Handbook for Victorious Christian Living, a book for the Christian who is truly seeking God and wants to live in victory in every area of their life. http://www.handbook-victorious-christian-living.com