Steps of Faith

When I first began preaching, I was told that I wasn’t qualified to preach. I had been a Christian for two years and had no proper theological training. I started a Bible study and was preaching around Orange County, California, when an opportunity opened up in Riverside. And pretty soon, it turned into a church. Then I was told that I wasn’t qualified to be a pastor. People told me it would never work and that I would surely fail.

When we started the Harvest Crusades, we were told, "That won’t work. Crusades are over with. Crusades will die with Billy Graham." (By the way, Billy Graham was told that crusades would die with Billy Sunday.) When we went to the Pacific Amphitheatre and then to Angel Stadium, people said, "That’s good for California, but it won’t work anywhere but California." We’ve since held crusades in such places as Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, the East Coast, the South, the Midwest, and Australia.

Sometimes we want to put God in a box. That is how it was when the Lord commanded Moses to send twelve men to spy out the Promised Land. Ten men came back and reported obstacles, challenges, giants, and defeat. But the other two saw the challenges for what they were. Joshua and Caleb saw that God would give them the victory if they would obey Him.

There always will be people who are very small in their thinking. There always will be people who will discourage us from what God might be calling us to do. Even so, we need to take bold steps of faith. So what if everything isn’t a complete success? We learn lessons from partial failures—and even outright failures.

Joshua and Caleb saw God for who He is. And so should we.