Cradle Promises and Deathbed Fears

I was given to God before I ever had a chance to object.

Before I could speak.

Before I could choose.

Before I understood what was being promised on my behalf.

I’ve been told my mother prayed over me as an infant — not with any sense of drama or destiny — just a quiet trust that God could have my life. She couldn’t have known where that prayer would lead. She couldn’t have imagined how far from home it would carry me.

At the time, it was a cradle promise.

Years later, it would brush up against deathbed fear.

Most faith stories are told backward. We start with meaning and work our way toward memory. But when you live them forward, faith doesn’t feel noble or clear. It feels like being handed over without consent — like standing inside decisions you didn’t fully make but still must live out.

I didn’t grow up calling that faith.

I grew up wondering whether it was permission.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”— Hebrews 11:1

Hebrews 11 doesn’t begin with explanations. It begins with movement. With people acting before they understand what obedience will cost them. Faith, Scripture says, is substance — something solid beneath your feet while everything ahead remains unseen.

I saw that kind of faith before I ever had language for it.

My father sold our farm in Ohio — everything familiar, everything rooted — and moved our family to Missouri to start over. There were no guarantees waiting there. No safety net. Just a conviction that it was time.

That kind of faith doesn’t announce itself.

It loads trucks.

It packs boxes.

It drives away knowing you might be wrong — but believing you must obey anyway.

On the farm, faith felt ordinary. It was repetitive. Almost boring.

You planted when the calendar said to plant.

You waited when the ground wasn’t ready.

You trusted God with rain and sun because there was nothing else you could do.

No one called it faith.

It was just life.

But Hebrews 11 is full of people like that — men and women who acted as if God was telling the truth before they had proof He would come through. They moved. They waited. They obeyed. Not because outcomes were guaranteed, but because obedience mattered more than certainty.

Faith made sense to me when crops depended on rain.

It made far less sense when I was lying on the ground.

A gun went off.

A .224 caliber bullet tore through me, just below the chest.

There was no bravery in that moment.

No calm surrender.

No composed prayer.

There was fear.

Raw.

Physical.

Overwhelming.

Fear isn’t poetic. It doesn’t ask permission. It fills every corner of your mind and leaves no room for theology.

What I remember most isn’t courage.

It’s my father standing over me — hoses hooked up, the blood — leaning in close and saying words that still sit heavy in my chest:

“Son, your whole life I’ve been preparing you for this day.”

He didn’t know if I would live.

Neither did I.

Faith didn’t feel like belief in that moment.

It felt like being held inside something larger than my understanding — whether I wanted it or not.

Hebrews 11 never says faith eliminates fear.

It shows people acting through it.

Sometimes faith looks decisive.

Sometimes it looks like survival.

Years later, faith asked something different of me.

Not endurance — but surrender.

A five-year relationship came to an end. Not because of betrayal. Not because of drama. But because we realized our spiritual paths were not aligned.

That kind of ending doesn’t explode.

It fades.

No villain.

No shouting.

Just the slow recognition that love alone cannot carry two people in opposite directions.

The question that followed stayed longer than the relationship itself:

Do I take what I want — or trust that God has something else prepared?

Hebrews 11 calls this obedience without reward. Walking away without knowing what you’re walking toward. Choosing faith not because it feels safe, but because disobedience feels heavier.

Faith doesn’t always mean stepping forward.

Sometimes it means letting go.

And then, unexpectedly, faith became an invitation.

Meeting the woman who would become my wife didn’t come with certainty. It came with weight. With responsibility. With questions I couldn’t answer.

Would she trust God enough to follow me into the unknown?

Across the world.

Into unfamiliar cultures.

Without language.

Without family support.

Without any guarantee that I could provide everything a husband is expected to provide.

I didn’t know how we would live.

I didn’t know how we would raise a family.

I didn’t know how I would supply every need.

I only knew this:

Christ had prepared her — and He was asking us to walk.

This is where Hebrews 11 becomes uncomfortable.

Because faith isn’t admiration.

It’s movement.

“By faith Abraham obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”— Hebrews 11:8

No map.

No timeline.

No proof.

Just obedience.

So what is faith?

It isn’t confidence in outcomes.

It isn’t emotional certainty.

It isn’t bravery.

Faith is trusting the character of God when the future is unreadable.

It is choosing obedience without clarity.

Movement without visibility.

Surrender without explanation.

Faith lives between cradle promises and deathbed fears.

That space is uncomfortable.

Lonely.

Often misunderstood.

But it is exactly where God has always worked.

Hebrews 11 ends in a way that feels almost unfair. After all the obedience, all the sacrifice, all the movement — it says they did not receive the promise.

Not yet.

Something better was prepared.

Faith does not demand immediate resolution.

It waits.

Quietly.

Stubbornly.

Faithfully.

If you find yourself standing in that space — between what God has said and what you can see — you are not failing.

You are not behind.

You are not weak.

You are exactly where faith lives.

And Christ stands there too.

Not asking you to understand.

Not asking you to feel brave.

Only asking you to trust Him enough to take the next step.