When scared, build an altar.
in the face of big promises.
You know those promises that are so big that you can’t even really acknowledge them without acknowledging just how small you are.
It’s like their magnitude puts into sharp focus your ‘mini-tude’ (yes, I know this is not a word, but you know what I mean!).
They are big and you are small.
But they are promises that the Holy Spirit whispers over and over to you. They are the words that take faith to even acknowledge and even more faith to live as if the God of fulfilled promises spoke them.
You know those promises.
Promises that can only come to pass by the hand of God.
Those promises.
For the longest time, I have mishandled these promises. Their weight scared me, and the consequence of them coming to pass (or not) was too much to comprehend. So my strategy has been to glance quickly and then go on with life as if they were not spoken.
When I slow down enough to ask myself ‘why?’, I find that within me is a deep distrust of… well me.
I trust God, trust Him to be able to do what He said that He would. But I don’t always trust me. Worried that I would be so captivated by the promise that I would lose sight of the Promise Keeper, I deny both the promise and the Promise Keeper.
And inadvertently become captivated by the promise. The very thing I was trying to avoid doing!
It’s like driving a car with my eyes closed because I am so scared that the map of the destination will captivate me beyond the voice that is leading me there. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s what I have been doing.
The truth is, that by doing this, I have placed the promise onto a pedestal elevating it beyond the Promise Keeper. In denying the promise to this extent, I have treated it as if it has the power to outshine the promise keeper.
As if any promise could ever outshine the Promise Keeper.
So uncertain of myself I have used my strength to try to ‘contain’ myself. To contain my hopes, my ambitions, my waywardness, my desires.
In a distorted way, my mistrust of myself has caused me to ‘trust’ myself more. Putting in ‘safeguards’ to keep myself from stumbling, as if I know myself better than the Promise Keeper.
Imagine receiving a gift from a loved one, but out of fear that the gift will take over your heart you refuse to look at the gift and only look at the gift giver with little acknowledgement of the gift. How strange that would be. As if the gift could outshine the gift giver. As if the gift could capture your heart so intensely that you forget who gave it to you.
I guess, in human terms that is a possibility.
But we are talking about the God of the universe, the maker and creator of all things, the One who spoke light and life into being. He is the source of perfection itself. What gift could He give that could steal our hearts if we are fully given to Him?
But still, I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust the wayward parts of my heart to be able to love and long for Him above all things.
Striped back, this is still an indication of my trust for myself over my trust for Him. In trusting my own estimations of my strength, faith and fortitude, I deny the power of His loving guidance of my life.
The bottom line question is:
Do I trust myself to hold me on the narrow way? Or do I trust that He is the One who holds me?
Do I believe He or I is the stronger party in this relationship?
He holds me, He holds me tightly.
What’s more, is that He knows me, He knows me more than I could ever know myself. So if He gives a promise then it is in His wisdom that He gives it; and it is in His perfect timing that He will fulfil it.
I have to trust His trust for me more than my trust of me.
Instead of fear, instead of avoidance, instead of denial, I want to be faithful.
I want to be like Abraham. When he was given a promise beyond all possible human fulfilment. He did not fret, he did not even ask how.
He built an altar.1
He lifted rock after rock in a foreign land that was promised to him, and as each rock was set upon the next he built a monument not to himself or even to the promise. He built a monument to the Promise Giver.
He sacrificed in worship and praise to the One who spoke the word.
The impossible promise did not cause him to despair, it did not push him into self-reliance, avoidance, or hyperdrive.
Hearing and seeing the promise caused Him to worship. It caused Him to lift his heart and his hands to the Promise Giver.
To build an altar.
I want to be like this. At every point where the Holy Spirit whispers the great promises that He has for my life, my marriage, and my family, I want to be like Abraham.
To, with open hands and an open heart, lift the rocks of my doubt, my fear, and my avoidance, and in worship surrender them as I build an altar.
Every doubt placed on the altar will signal my trust in the Lord.
Every fear set on fire on the altar will testify of my faith in the risen Son.
Every avoidance turned to ash will declare that my God can use anyone for His perfect will, even me.
My eyes no longer on the weightiness of the promise or the impossibility of the word spoken. But captivated by the One who spoke the words.
I will build my altar.
No longer in denial, I will hold the promise in my hands and I will behold the eyes of the One who has spoken the words.
I will be held by His incredible love and I will see that though the promise is big, and I am small.
My God is greater still.
‘Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name’ Hebrews 13:15
Sometimes I feel like the walk of faith is like walking on a tightrope. Not in terms of feeling ‘danger’ or even that there is a danger of falling totally off. But that there is an essential need for continual awareness, intention and sensitivity. We always have to be attuned to the Spirit and His leaning. Alway attuned to the voice of God so that we know how to walk, where to walk, and where we need to course-correct.
I love that it is like this, I don’t see it as a hassle or a burden, I love that we get to live a life that cannot be done on our own. It is a life of faithfulness that is fully reliant and dependant on Him.
For some this will feel like a hassle, like they are limited and not free. But for me, for us who walk the narrow way, it is His grace and mercy. It is what keeps us on the narrow way that leads to life.
And I am thankful.
I received a few emails in response to my last post sharing the hard and real things people are walking through. I just wanted to say ‘thank you’ for trusting me with your stories and for letting my stories speak to your hearts.
And thank you to Josh and ‘someone’ who supported through generous one of donations. It so encouraged me, thank you!
Until next time,
Love, Anna x
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Posts you may have missed:
The game of isolation.
‘I refuse to be a casualty of war,’ is what I messaged my friend as I processed what was (honestly) a mess of a situation I have found myself in. It's a mess that involves a lot of Christian brothers and sisters who all genuinely loved one another but are flawed and imperfect … just like me.
We are born of the wind.
In June 2024, I wrote No one enjoys a windstorm, where I wrestled with how God sometimes moves so powerfully in your life it can feel overwhelming. But how we can trust the motives of God even when we don’t understand.