Stretching My Faith

When a cook makes pizza dough, she begins with a round ball of flour, water, and yeast. It doesn’t look like much. But then she begins to roll out the dough and stretch it with her hands. An expert pizza maker can stretch the dough to cover a large pizza pan without tearing the dough. Her fingers and fists deftly work around the circle to enlarge it gradually. Then she lets the dough rest a few moments on the pan before finishing the pie.

God knows just how He wants your character to stretch and grow in order for you to become the person He created you to be. He puts us in situations that stretch our character and help us build those qualities in our lives that please Him.

When God is stretching our faith we can feel discouraged, overwhelmed, or even enthused. It all depends on our attitude.

What stretching moments have you had? Many probably weren’t too pleasant at the time, but their result was gratifying.

Amy Carmichael had one of those faith-stretching moments. She grew up in Northern Ireland in the last half of the 1800s. She had a wonderful childhood as a part of a large, loving family. Her parents had a deep faith in Jesus Christ, and they passed their faith on to their children.

When Amy was three years old, she had one wish above all others. Her mother had beautiful blue eyes and Amy had brown ones. With all her heart, Amy wanted blue eyes.

Her mother had told her many times, “Ask God, Amy, if you want anything badly. Share it with Him. He’s never too far away to hear our prayers and He’ll always give you an answer.”

Amy believed that God would answer her prayers, so she asked Him to change her eye color to blue. Then she went to bed. She was absolutely sure that the next morning she would wake up with blue eyes.

As soon as she woke up the next morning, she pushed a chair over to the chest of drawers and climbed up on the seat so that she could see herself in the bureau mirror. Reflected back at her from the glass was a brown-eyed little face. God had not changed her eye color.

Initially, she was disappointed.  She soon realized, however, that “no” was an answer to prayer just as much as “yes” was. She decided to be content to let her wise God have His way.

Many years later, Amy traveled to India as a missionary. While she was there, she saw the poor, abused children who had been sold as slaves to the Temple. Amy determined to rescue these children and bring them up in a Christian atmosphere.

She devised a plan. She stained her arms, hands, and face with coffee to make herself look like an Indian woman and covered herself with an Indian sari so that she could pass into the Temple where foreigners were not allowed to go. She would then take the children away with her and liberate them from their slavery.

One day, she recognized a gracious truth about her success in rescuing so many children. If she had blue eyes instead of brown, she could not have escaped detection in the Temple. God had known from the day He formed her that she needed brown eyes! Many times, she told this story to her Indian children, encouraging them to have faith in God too.

As a little girl, Amy’s faith was stretched through her prayer. Although she didn’t understand all the ramifications of what God was doing until many years late, her faith was stretched to accept the answer to her prayer. Her faith was rewarded in seeing Him use her in so many children’s lives.

Sometimes we may resent faith-stretching experiences. But they are really blessings. We may never know in this life what God was doing during these times, but we can be sure that His hands are gently forming us into women and men usable for His kingdom!

By Vonette Bright

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