Sermon: God Gives Us Arrows, Not Maps

Church of the Nativity - Fayetteville, GA

August 10, 2025

9th Sunday After Pentecost

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I’m honored to be here among you today and am excited to get to know you over the coming months. I am a Postulant in the Diocese of Atlanta—which is just a fancy way of saying a priest in training. I’ve spent the last three years serving at my home church, St. Paul’s Newnan, and this is the next of many steps I’ve taken on this journey of discerning a call to ordained ministry.

I first felt God calling me to ministry over 20 years ago and that has taken on many forms as I’ve served the church and nonprofits on three continents. In all that time, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that change is about the only certain thing in life, especially in a life of faith.

A new part of my journey began six summers ago, when my family—my husband Lee, and our then-ten-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son—moved home unexpectedly to Georgia from where we’d been serving in Bangladesh. We moved in with a friend, had no jobs lined up, and no faith community to land in.

I had already been wrestling with my place in the evangelical church for years, and when we returned, I knew I couldn’t go back. God had changed me in our two years in South Asia. I’d seen something different, something I couldn’t unsee.

Now, I’m a planner and a controller by nature. I like to prepare for every possible outcome. But home didn’t look the same anymore, and I had no plan. I knew God was calling me to something different, but I had no idea what that was. During that time of discerning where to go next, I read The Next Right Thing by spiritual director Emily Freeman. She offers this prayer:

“We are looking for a plan, but then you offer us your hand. May it be enough today. Grow us in courage where once there was fear. Give us eyes to see the arrows. Help us to trust our own hearts as we put our trust in you.”

She talks about following these arrows God gives us to guide our way—not a detailed map, not a GPS route from start to finish, but just the arrow pointing to the very next turn. The next right thing. I’ve kept that concept and that prayer close to my heart these last six years. This season of complete uncertainty has taught me something I didn’t know I needed to learn, that faith rarely comes with a map. It’s more like following arrows: just enough light for the next step, trusting God for the rest.

And when I read our lessons for this week, I saw that same pattern of a faithful life, taken one step at a time, woven all through Scripture. In Genesis, we find Abraham looking up at the night sky, hearing God’s promise that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars, while he and Sarah still have no child. In Psalm 33, the psalmist sings of God’s steadfast love, even when the future is hidden from view. In both, faith is not about having proof in hand, but about trusting the One who holds the future.

Hebrews 11 is sometimes called the “Hall of Faith,” but it’s not a hall lined with perfect saints who always knew exactly what God was doing. It’s full of people like Abraham, who “set out, not knowing where he was going.” They had faith, so they stepped into the unknown.

The writer of Hebrews begins Chapter 11 with the description of faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” For a long time, I equated this verse with the kind of thinking I grew up with in churches where people would say things like, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” I thought faith meant intellectual assent, certainty in something concrete and well-defined.

But that’s not the kind of faith we see the people of God living out. Faith is a way of seeing differently, seeing what isn’t yet visible and living as if it were already true. By faith, Abraham set out… not knowing where he was going.

But Abraham’s journey wasn’t a quick sprint to a clear finish line. After ten years in Canaan, when Abraham was 86, Hagar gave birth to his son Ishmael. It would be another fourteen years before Sarah would give birth to Isaac. All those years, and after God’s promise to give him descendants as numerous as the stars, he had only two sons. God had promised him land, yet his family continued to live in tents as foreigners there. The only property he ever owned in Canaan was the burial site where he laid Sarah to rest.

Hebrews tells us he died in faith without receiving the fullness of the promises, yet he trusted God enough to keep going. That’s what faith does—it responds, moving toward a horizon we can’t yet see clearly.

When we moved home, I felt a little like the pilgrim Abrham. I didn’t know what would come next or how God’s promises would take shape. But I had just enough trust to step into an Episcopal Church for the first time, and I found my home. It wasn’t easy; I was leaving behind everything I knew.

My family and I started going to different churches. I had to learn a whole new way of doing faith in community. At that point, I had no intentions of stepping into any sort of leadership in the church, I was just looking for that next right step, and the next. And I was terrified.

Stepping out into the unknown in faith is scary. Jesus knew this truth well. In the Gospel reading today, he says to his disciples: “Do not be afraid, little flock.” The followers of Jesus knew what it meant to live with fear as a constant companion. They lived in an occupied territory, in a world full of injustice. They followed an itinerant rabbi, who wasn’t well liked by those in power. Would Roman soldiers arrest them? Where would their next meal come from? Where would they stay next?

We, too, live in times when fear is never far beneath the surface. We carry the weight of an uncertain future—our own and that of those we love. We worry for our families, for the world we inhabit. Perhaps it’s even the unknown future of this community you cherish that stirs your fear. And fear, if we let it, has a way of immobilizing us.

But Jesus’ reassurance isn’t just meant to comfort us. It’s an invitation. He’s not calling us to pretend everything is fine or drift into a passive kind of letting go. His very next words are ones of action. He’s calling us into a deeply active trust, the kind of faith that releases our grip enough to make space for God to act. Sell your possessions, he says. Store up treasure in heaven.

He’s challenging the disciples, and us, to think about what we’re clinging to. What are we placing our faith in? Do we think if we can just hold on tighter, plan more carefully, control more variables, then maybe we can have it all figured out? I know I often think this way. But Jesus invites us away from fear, toward trust.

Faith holds space for both unknowing and deep knowing. It is a holy tension that calls us to live with courage, even when certainty feels out of reach. To be faithful is to be ready, living as if the kingdom of God is already present, even when we cannot yet see its full unfolding.

My step into the Episcopal Church wasn’t an arrival. It was the beginning of more unknown, more transition, taking step after uncertain step. Six years and three advanced degrees later, I stand here today still having no idea what comes next. I am here with you today. I don’t know for sure how long, where I’ll go next, and no assurance exactly if or when I’ll be ordained.

And it is a constant struggle to remember faith isn’t having all the answers, but the courage to act faithfully anyway—to take just the next step.

Perhaps some of you have felt this too—that place where your footing feels unsure, the future hazy, and control just beyond your grasp. I invite you to consider this: what is one place in your life where you feel uncertain right now, afraid of what might be beyond the horizon you can see? Could that very place be where God is calling you to release control and embrace trust? To lay down your fear, not as a passive surrender, but as a bold readiness to be led by God’s grace?

Faith is a pilgrimage, not a possession. It is trust in action. It is courage rooted deeply in relationship with God.

Jesus tells us, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” This is not simply a promise to hold onto, but an invitation to live from a place of hope and abundance today. To walk in faith means moving forward without knowing all the outcomes yet being grounded in God’s steadfast love and promises.

So, let us lay down our fears. Let us open our eyes to see the world differently and change the way we live within it. Let us be ready, alert, and loving, for this is what faith in action truly looks like.

The gift of God’s kingdom is already being offered. It is already here. May we journey forward together with courage and hope, living a faith that moves us through the unknown toward the fullness of God’s promises. Amen.