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Most of us have faith when we have to have it. When there is no other recourse. When we are at the end of our rope, and we realize we can’t get there without God.

Most of us have faith when it’s not hard yet. When everything is working just great for us, and life is good. When it really doesn’t require all that much of us.

But there is a place between those two extremes when most of us lose faith. It’s that moment just before the point of no return. When we’re staring down a situation or circumstance, and we blink. In that moment, we doubt God’s power. We decide we can’t go through with it. We freak out and run. And we miss out because we move before we let God move. It’s in that moment where we decide whether we’re going to trust God or trust ourselves.

This is a very unfortunate truth. I feel confident you can point to at least one time in your life when you failed to hold your ground. When you saw an out and took it. When push came to shove, and you pushed and shoved your way out of God’s will because it got real, and it got really scary.

I feel like I’m facing a moment of faith myself. Trying not to bail. Trying to see it through and trust that God is leading me down an intentional path. But it’s hard. I started my new company six months ago. January actually marks my seventh month in business. But last week, I all but panicked. I looked out ahead and couldn’t clearly see what God had waiting for me. To date, I’ve been pulling in enough work to keep me busy and pay our bills and all. But January, my seventh month, marks the first time that client work feels really light. This happens with all startups, but that doesn’t make it any less disconcerting.

As I pondered my next steps, I realized that I could either a. continue to diligently pursue the path I believe God has me on and trust that I’m right and that He will provide. Or b. I could bail, quickly begin looking for work and take matters into my own hands. I grabbed my Bible to calm myself with scripture. Opening it randomly to Ezra, I started reading in Chapter 3. There it talks about worship being restored at Jerusalem.

In verses 3-4, it says, “Though fear had come upon them…they set the alter on its bases and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord both morning and evening…they also kept the Feast of the Tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings in the number required…”

So in other words, they were afraid, freaked out, but they continued in obedience, pushing ahead despite fear and worry. What was most powerful for me in this passage was the way it started. “And when the seventh month had come…” Their seventh month. As in my seventh month. I feel like God clearly had something to say to me that afternoon.

So, at the moment, I’m a little freaked out still, but I’m proceeding ahead in the direction I feel God is leading, and trying to rest in peace knowing He will deliver me and my family accordingly. But this moment of faith is tremendously difficult. And every morning, I wake up, and I feel like running. I feel like blinking. But I won’t. I can’t. Not if I want to see God move.