Trusting God in the Unknown (Part 3)

When God Asks You to Take a Leap of Faith

Many of us who feel stagnant, restless, and unfulfilled are not lacking discipline.

Some of you already know what God is asking you to do.
You just haven’t moved yet.

We are being invited into a deeper level of spiritual maturity.

And this level is not comfortable.
It’s not always sensible.
And it rarely feels logical.

It requires you to move beyond your natural reasoning.
To push past the opinions of others.
And sometimes, to release the very things you’ve worked and prayed for… to follow God.

If I’m honest, many believers never move past this stage.

For some, it’s a lack of trust.
Control and fear quietly take over.

For others, it’s a lack of context.
We understand the words of God, but not the ways of God.

We don’t always understand what spiritual maturation looks like… or how God develops us for what we’re called to do.

And for some, it’s the lack of counsel and community.

Because it’s hard to find people who have actually walked this journey out.

The Reality of Trust

You can’t fully trust someone you don’t know.

And it’s difficult to trust someone if you don’t believe they truly know you.

Trust is built over time.
Through vulnerability.
Through intentional relationship.

For years, I knew of God.

I heard about Him in church.
I read stories in the Bible.

But I didn’t know Him personally.

And if I’m honest, I wasn’t fully convinced that He knew me either.

That He saw me.
That He loved me.
That He had a unique path for my life.

I thought purpose was reserved for “certain” people.

But there was still something in me that was curious.

I wanted to understand God.

And what I’ve come to realize is this:

My pursuit of God created space for me to recognize His pursuit of me.

What It Looked Like for Me

At some point, following God becomes personal.

Not theoretical.
Not conceptual.
But real.

I remember a moment years ago when I heard the Lord very clearly.

He spoke two things to me.

The first aligned with my interests and felt affirming. I was excited.

The second made absolutely no sense.

“You’re going to help women get out of bondage and help launch them into destiny.”

At the time, that didn’t match my reality at all.

I was a church misfit who loved God deeply, but struggled to understand church culture, systems, and structure.

I was navigating life as a divorced, single mother with two young boys, just trying to make it through each day.

So naturally, I tried to interpret what God said through a practical lens.

Maybe I would lead a women’s Bible study one day.
Maybe this would show up in some familiar way.

But what I’ve come to understand is this:

God was not giving me a task.

He was revealing how He made me… and how I would move in the world.

Specific assignments would come later.

The Dangerous Pursuit of God

Shortly after that moment, God asked me to do something that made no sense.

To leave everything I knew.
To go against logic.
To move without guarantees.

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”— Hebrews 11:8

To relocate from Maryland to Florida.

During COVID.
With two young boys.
Without a job or established community.

If you want a deeper look at what that season actually looked like for me, I wrote about it here:
I quit my life and moved to the beach

And I did.

From the outside, it looked risky.

But internally, I had never felt more settled.

More secure.

More aligned in my relationship with God than I ever had before.

And that’s when I began to understand something:

Following God will cost you something.

When I listen to the stories of others, I often find myself tracing the hand of God.

And there is always a moment—

A defining moment—

where they had to choose God in a way they never had before.

And it was costly.

Money.
Reputation.
Comfort.
Friendships.
Career.

One pattern I’ve noticed is the timing of this kind of faith.

It often comes after you’ve built something.

After you’ve achieved something.

After you’ve become comfortable.

And then God asks you to release it.

Not to punish you.

But to refine you.

To reposition you.

To lead you into something you could not reach by staying where you are.

Why Many of Us Don’t Leap

If we’re honest, many of us don’t leap because we prefer comfort and control.

You’ve thought about it.
You’ve prayed about it.
You’ve even felt a quiet nudge more than once.

But you’re still waiting for clarity you may never fully get.

We want guarantees before we act.

We want to understand how everything will work out before we say yes.

But faith doesn’t work that way.

What once felt like safety… can quietly become stagnation.

And over time, staying in places that feel safe but are no longer aligned begins to cost us.

Not always externally.
But internally.

For many, that cost shows up in one of two ways:

Despair
A loss of hope.
A sense that nothing will change.
A quiet feeling of helplessness.

Elijah asked God to take his life (1 Kings 19:4).
Job said his spirit was broken (Job 17:1).

And then there is…

Deep Disenchantment

A loss of meaning.
A quiet detachment.
A sense that the things that once mattered… no longer do.

You’re going through the motions.

But something feels off.
Something feels disconnected.

In both of these places, something important is happening.

You are being confronted with your limits.
Your inability to control outcomes.

And while that can feel unsettling…

it can also become the very place where real faith begins.

Faith Requires More Than Belief

Many of us pray.

And prayer is important.

But prayer alone is not the full expression of faith.

Faith is belief…

and action.

“Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”— James 2:17

What you do after you pray matters.

Obedience is often the bridge between what God has spoken…

and what you will experience.

And sometimes the very thing you are waiting for on the other side of prayer…

is waiting on your movement.

A Final Thought

If you’re honest, there may be something God has been prompting you to do.

A step you’ve been avoiding.
A decision you’ve been delaying.

Not because you don’t believe God…

but because you don’t fully understand what will happen next.

That tension is real.

But faith rarely comes with full clarity.

Sometimes trusting God looks like this:

Taking the next step…

before you have the full picture.

At some point, trust requires movement.

Question for Reflection

Is there something in your life that you sense God is asking you to do—but you’ve been hesitant to move on?

What would it look like to take one step forward in faith?