Flying leap of faith

The picture above is Joseph.

For those of you who haven't had the privledge of getting to meet this little guy, this is my 2 and a half year old cousin. Let me tell you about this little monkey. In all of my families hearts, right from the first moment we laid eyes on him (and even before that I guess when we would sing and talk to my aunts pregnant stomach), we all immediatly fell in love with him and he became a very precious gift to all of us. Just a year or so previous to him being born, my aunt and uncle had another child, Mercedes, who only lives about 27 days before dying due to complications. So Joseph instantly was our gift from God when he was born.

Joseph is absolutly full of energy..actually thats an understatement. He is just always going, always hyper, and always talking! (...fits right in with our family...) But he's just an absolute sweet heart. A game he loves to get me to play with him is hide and seek...except he's still in the stage of "if-i-can't-see-you-then-you-can't-see-me" but it keeps him entertained for quite a long time, and always brings a loud outburst of giggling from his mouth when I "find" him and tickle him until someone else in the room tells him to stop yelling (he laughs very loud haha). I love this kid to pieces, and every time he shouts "Essie!", or wraps his arms around me in a hug, or runs after me when I leave his house to give me one last kiss goodbye...what a pull on my heart strings!

Another game Joseph loves to play is when he's standing on something high and then litterally jumps and throws himself at you, whether you're ready for it or not! This kid demonstrates absoulte complete faith and just leaps into the air and knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is going to be caught. And then laughs with absolute thrills when he is caught, without a thought of fear or doubt ever having passed through his little head.

How many of us have this kind of faith? The kind of faith that allows you to take a flying leap into the air and just knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you will be caught? I have a feeling its a struggle for many of you out there, as it is for me.

This year has been full of little, and big, steps of faith that God has called me to. I felt so inadequate to what God wanted me to do, and the level of faith he was asking from me. But then I remembered the verse....

"He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
-Matthew 17:20

...and boy did I ever have the faith of a mustard seed! But i figured..if thats all God needed from me, then what I had to offer would do. And let me tell you..when I was finally able to give that tiny little amount of faith over to God, He allowed it to blossom into something so incredible! He took that miserable excuse for "faith" and allowed me to grow until I was able to trust Him with the 3 biggest struggles of my life! I took the biggest step of faith of my life this past September, and man was I scared! But I was ready to put my trust and faith in Him alone, and everything has worked out! Well...there is still a long road ahead, but I'm on my way, with His help!

Now I know that everytime Joseph gets ready to jump off the coffee table, or a chair, or whatever else he's climbed up on, he isn't thinking "now I just need to put my mustard seed faith in Essie, that she's going to catch me, and then I will move mountains..." But what he is doing, is keeping it simple. He KNOWS that when he leaps into the air I will catch him..no if, ands, or buts. Thats what God needs from us. A leap of faith into the air that is without any thought of doubt, and to just KNOW that He is going to catch us! Nothing complicated, no secret formulas. Just pure trust and faith.

So take a leap of faith. Don't make it complicated. Put yourself into the shoes of a 2 year old and KNOW that when you fly into the air, you're going to be caught!

God Bless!