Abram went out, not knowing whither he went. He had no idea of his final destination. He took the first step, and did not ask God to see the distant scene. He trusted God, and that is faith. He was determined to do God’s will here and now, and leave the results to Him. Faith is not knowledge; it is fidelity in a moral act. Faith leaves something to the Lord; it obeys His immediate commandment and leaves to Him direction and destiny.

That is enough, just to feel His presence. Our faith is accompanied by serenity. “He that believeth shall not make haste.” He shall not get into a panic, neither fetching fears from his yesterdays nor from his tomorrows. Concerning his yesterdays, faith whispers, “Thou hast beset me before.” Concerning his tomorrows, faith says, “Thou hast beset me before.” Concerning his faith today, faith says, “Thou hast laid thine hand upon me. That is enough, just to feel the pressure of the guiding hand.”

God said to Abraham, “Look now toward heaven!” Abraham sat moodily in his tent; God brought him forth beneath the stars. That is always the line of the divine leading. He brings us forth out of our small imprisonments and He sets our feet in a large place. He desires for us height and breadth of view. “For, as the heavens are high above the earth, so are His thoughts higher than our thoughts, and His ways than our ways.”

He wishes us, I say, to exchange the tent for the sky, and to love and move in great spacious thoughts of His purpose and will. William Stidger wrote the following poem he called “Almost Omnipotent.”

I am an eagle born to fly

Up stellar highways of the sky,

Along the Milky Way, where blaze

New dawn, new planets, and new ways.

I am man-born, God-led, sky-bent,

Almost omnipotent!

I am a planet, blazing white

Down the long world’s chaotic night,

A planet on its orbit flung, a new Mars in the heavens hung;

Sky-born, sun-bred, God-sent;

Almost omnipotent!

I am a personality; a spark of God’s divinity;

A sacred thing in God’s own eyes,

An earth-born pilgrim from the skies;

Of dust and spirit strangely blent; Almost omnipotent!

I am a pilgrim who has strayed to earth and in God’s image

made, To dominate sky, land, and sea;

The lord of my own destiny;

Till all the veils of earth are rent;

Almost omnipotent!

I want no heaven, without the vast event Of spring when birds nest and sing, Without white dawn, magnificent,

And wide winds that swing.

I want no heaven without autumn,

When leaves turn crimson and gold,

And I can hear eaves creak

And feel time grow old.

I want no heaven without love of friends,

And work to do, with rest at dusk when the day ends

In the wide west.

I want no heaven without children, home and wife

About me, over there.

Without these, to me no life eternal would be fair.

I think I’d almost rather be dead through all eternity

Than not have these,

Dear Lord, if you please.

Robert V. Ozment is a retired United Methodist minister.