You pray, you read your Bible. You have a few Scriptures that are “go to” passages. You don’t lose sight of hope, and you don’t give doubt any quarter. You keep a stiff upper lip, set your jaw, grit your teeth, and hold your head up. You believe—believe God, trust God, and are determined to depend upon Him. Now what?

You step forward, or get up, or claw your way back, or refocus. You strip away anything extraneous, jettison all non essentials (like any provision for your old ways of doing things), and run the race set before you.

Run?

Running can be a sprint, a marathon, a slog, a crawl. It can be a joy, a chore, an effort, an otherworldly demand. You can “hit the wall” when you run, but you can’t stop because then you will not be running.

Think of running as started, moving, in motion, directed—and therefore, gathering no moss; shaking off the dust; clearing your head; immersed in the momentum of movement. The only expectation is movement.

What now? That first step: taking it. This is also called faith.

What if your faith is wounded, discouraged, questioned, daunted, or otherwise seemingly overwhelmed? What now?

Ah, that is trust.

We can all use an example of how to take the next step, how to believe, and when belief is questionable, how to trust. Here’s a story that will do just that.