I drove from Frisco to Sherman last week, a drive of about an hour straight north up Preston Road. I had an appointment at the Department of Public Safety, to renew my driver’s license. The appointment was for 10:15. I set out in plenty of time. 

En route, I realized that the drive is actually rather beautiful once you get past the (ever-expanding) suburban sprawl that once was the small town of Prosper. 

Wide open fields, some peopled picturesquely by contented-looking cows, line both sides of the road. 

Occasional belts of trees – the Texas variety, more rugged than lush, with hackberries and cottonwoods predominating – create pockets of shade. 

And the terrain gets hilly.

That last can be a bit unnerving for drivers used to the pancake-flat aspect of North Texas streets and roads. We become accustomed to seeing all the way to the horizon (or at least to the strip mall that obscures it). The wide-open skies above us are customarily mirrored by the wide-open topography around us.

 It’s not that I haven’t driven hilly roads before. Our almost-annual retreat to Colorado has accustomed me to true mountain peaks, hairpin curves, and tunnels straight into rock faces. But that’s Colorado – that’s vacation – that’s out-of-the-ordinary. 

Sherman is none of those things. The hills en route startled me.

Thought number one: driving over a hill at 60 miles per hour is an act of audacious faith. 

Because you can’t see over the top of the hill, you can’t know for certain what is on the other side. You have to go forward based on faith, because sight cannot assure you. 

Specifically, you have to have faith that the pavement won’t suddenly end. 

You also have to have faith that there won’t be a traffic jam – or accident – or escaped cow – blocking the road.

That means you have to have faith in the Texas Department of Transportation (maintainer of the pavement) – and your fellow drivers (a veritable leap of faith, much of the time) – and even in the farmers whose fences keep the cows in the fields.

That’s a lot of faith. 

That’s faith in disparate individuals I will most likely never meet and an organization I had to look up in order to name.

Thought number two: acts of audacious faith actually punctuate my days.

I trust that my tap water, my electricity, and my gas stove are safe… that they will not poison, electrocute, or blow me up – though they could.

I trust that my medications will do the good my doctors tell me they will and not hurt (or kill) me by mistake… that’s trusting my doctors, the pharmaceutical companies who make the meds, and the pharmacy techs who put the pills in the bottles, too.

I trust the postal worker who takes the stamped envelopes out of my mailbox when he delivers my mail… I trust that he will put those stamped envelopes where they need to go when he gets back to the Post Office.

I could go on (and on), but you get the idea. 

Life actually resembles the hilly road to Sherman much more than it resembles a panoramic-to-the-horizon perspective. 

All those ordinary things actually require extraordinary trust. Audacious faith is a fact of life.

Thought number three: if I trust the Texas Department of Transportation, my mailman, and the pharmacy techs filling the pill bottles at Express Scripts, why is it so hard for me to trust God?

Looking at my daily life, I see audacious faith displayed in most of my routines. I assume the good will of strangers and the basic efficacy of systems and the general competency of authorities – because questioning these things would mean endless inconvenience and angst. 

Having faith in the world around me saves me time and energy where endless doubting and second-guessing would do the opposite.

But I routinely indulge myself in doubts and second-guesses with God… as if angst and inconvenience were a logical part of my actual faith-walk, even as audacious faith keeps me walking mostly confidently in the world.  

This illogic borders on insanity.

I have experienced, many times, the way that the world and its inhabitants inevitably disappoint eventually. The let-downs, mistakes, and disasters sometimes come accidentally and sometimes are the result of deliberate malice or incompetence – but they come. Inevitably. Eventually.

But God? He cannot make a mistake because He can only be Who He is, and He is faithful. Trustworthy. The Promise-Keeper and the solid Rock.

So, I have audacious faith in people and systems that are inherently flawed and untrustworthy – but I don’t quite trust the Faithful One.

What is that?

Thought number four: I want to live my life with the Lord more and more like I made that drive to Sherman. 

I want to appreciate the view, accelerate without fear, and rest in certainty about the where and the why of my destination. 

The audacious faith that facilitates living on earth has a heavenly corollary that actually makes much more sense – that’s the faith I want. 

That’s the faith I need.

Friends, I don’t know whether you are facing some seriously hilly topography or you have a wide-open view right now, but I do know that the only safe place for audacious faith is in the One Who will never leave you nor forsake you. 

God is worthy of our audacious faith because God is audaciously faithful to us. 

Let’s remember that – let’s remind one another – and let’s reorient our day-in, day-out basis for confidence and peace: God, and only God.

I’ll leave you with thought number five, an acronym to take with you on your next road trip (whether to Colorado or to the grocery store)…

We are His beloved, safe in His embrace, and we are

Forging

Ahead

In

The

Hope of Heaven.