There’s Comfort in Living by Faith.

There it is.

Uh-huh. That’s exactly what you think it is. A parting gift from my daughter after she, her family, and their dog left to head back to their home.

The first time I thought, “I’m not sure leaving that right out in front of my house, just lying there on my water hose housing is a good thing.” I mean, really? Wouldn’t it have been just as easy to drop it in the trash can?

Not a big deal, but now I had to pick it up and carry it to the trash can. I took a picture and sent it to my daughter to let her know she had forgotten something. She sent back the reasons she left the bag of poop where she did.

One, she wasn’t sure when I would take my trash out, so she didn’t want it to smell up the garage. Our large can stays in the garage until our weekly trash day. Two, she wanted to make sure I knew where it was so I could put it away when I wanted to put it away. She didn’t want it to be go unnoticed for a long period of time.

Her reasons made perfect sense to me. To her credit, I should have known what she was doing, but it had been a long time since we’d had a dog at the house, and I wasn’t thinking as a dog owner. We had a lot going on while they were at the house, so it also made sense that she would not have stopped the activities to say, “Dad, you’re probably not going to get this immediately, but I’m going to leave a small bag of dog poop right outside the garage so that you’ll find it right away and then you can decide when and how you would like to dispose of it.”

This whole incident reminds me of God’s care for us.

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He doesn’t always choose to stop us in the middle of our busy lives and say, “Now I’m going to prevent such and such from happening. But I’m also going to allow this and that to happen. On top of those events, I’m going to do this, and I’m going to tell you exactly what I’m doing because you are not likely to understand.”

Instead, God calls us to have faith in Him.

As Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians, “for we walk by faith, not by sight—”. (2 Corinthians 5:7, NASB)

Walking by faith means we trust God in every circumstance. No matter what we feel, desire, or think we understand, we submit all those things to God. Even when our first reaction is, “Why would You allow this to happen?”

You see, God designed us to live by faith. I like the way God describes it in the book of Isaiah.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9, NASB)

There’s comfort in knowing my daughter cares enough about me to not surprise me with an unpleasant odor in a trash can that’s been sitting in a warm garage all week. It’s even more comforting to know I don’t have to understand everything that’s happening to me in life. I can work through the things I do understand and leave the rest to God.

How about you? Do you find comfort in living by faith?

Today’s feature photo comes from a “photo-a-day” challenge I pursued several years ago. The photo inspires the topic. For me, the posts challenge my creativity, writing discipline, and dependence on God for His message. My prayer is that you find hope in God’s Word, and that you’ll share your hope with others.