3 Lessons from Saying Yes to God’s Call

If you’ve ever participated in a team-building event, there’s an excellent chance you were challenged to complete a “trust fall.” It’s a rite of passage for many newly organized groups, be they within the workplace, ministry, or social organization.

The trust fall requires a singular person in a group to position themselves in front of a cluster of their peers or colleagues. With their back facing the group and their arms crossed in front of their body, the individual must fall backward and trust that the people on the receiving end, whom they might not know very well and may have absolutely no vested interest in them, will spare them from hitting the ground and, instead, come to their rescue and catch them.

The last ten years of my life have been somewhat akin to a cycle of trust falls. Although I’ve loved and trusted the Lord for most of my life, I continue to marvel at the jaw-dropping ways in which He "catches me” again and again, particularly as it relates to a certain giant endeavor in which He has called me to be involved. 

There is a massive catalog of ways in which God has shown up in remarkable ways and confirmed that He has everything under control. These three lessons are perhaps the biggest things I’ve learned along the way:

1. If God Is Behind Something, He’ll Make It Happen

Currently underway in the heart of the UK, the Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, a massive Christian monument dedicated to making hope visible, will feature one million accounts of answered prayer. The largest database of hope stories in the world, the project is ten years in the making. 

When God shared this vision with me so many years ago, it was completely out of reach. But that’s exactly the point, isn’t it? God’s plans are far beyond our comprehension and far better than anything we could come up with on our own. 

A massive collaboration of dedication, ingenuity, and engineering, the Eternal Wall sounded ridiculous to many people when we first set about making it happen. I’ll never forget walking into that first governmental meeting to request permission to construct it. When challenged as to how we would fund such a structure, I told them I had a “big backer.”

My big backer was Jesus, and it still is today. From the acquisition of land to the many technicalities of the monument’s design and digitization, we’ve been confronted with the impossible many times. But we’re unstoppable because it’s God’s plan.

Believing this, anytime that God calls us to something which, frankly, doesn’t seem feasible in the natural, that’s a sign that He’s about to show up — big time. If we place our trust in His sovereignty, we can be certain He’ll not only catch us, but will exceed our human expectations.

I rely on Acts 5:38-39, which says, “Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

2. His Timing Is Not Our Timing

Someone asked me how I stayed optimistic about the project for ten years before it officially became an active plan. The truth is, although I knew I heard God when He first birthed the vision in my heart, it wasn’t until years later that I felt a burden to get started. 

In the meantime, I experienced several job changes, none of which did I realize would be of tremendous value when God finally said, “It’s time now.” The experience I gained in the software industry, for example, along with many contacts that I made across several industries were part of God’s preparation for His perfect timing.

A wise man once said to me, “If you look at the meanderings of life, you can see the direction that God wants to take you.” When you look at it that way, I can’t believe a single day was wasted during the ten-year period between the birth of God’s vision and its physical execution. What feels like meandering to us, is actually in the hands of our omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God.

3. It’s Not about Bravery, It’s about Obedience

In setting about the complex undertaking of the Eternal Wall, someone might wonder if I possess some special brand of next-level faith for which the Lord chose me to be a part of this. No, I’m as flawed in my faith as the next person. However, I’ve learned that we’re tested in the little things before God will trust us with the bigger things. 

Luke 16:10 says, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” I’ve failed many times at the little things, but God has taught me that if I can’t trust Him in the little challenges of life, I’m certainly not going to be able to trust Him for the giant things. And let me tell you, there have been some giant things!

In the small, day-to-day things and in the “trust fall” kinds of things, it all comes down to this: Have I heard God and do I believe Him? Will I obey Him?

God is never surprised. He’s never unprepared. He’s not easily flustered or perplexed about how to proceed in the face of challenges. He goes ahead of us, preparing the way. We should never let earthly facts get in the way of God’s Truth. 

Have you ever felt the Lord calling you to do or believe in something that felt completely beyond your reach? That sounds like the God I know. He called me to build a national monument dedicated to answered prayer. But every time we surrender our fears of falling and crashing to the ground, and choose to trust Him to catch us, our faith deepens, and we learn to trust Him better the next time.

Photo Credit: Unsplash/nordwood themes 

Richard Gamble is the founder and visionary behind Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, a project building a colossal infinity loop consisting of the world’s largest database of hope stories. Aspiring to make hope visible and renew faith in prayer, Gamble first had the idea for the inspirational structure in 2004 when he was carrying a cross around Leicestershire at Easter to lead people to think about Jesus. Gamble has spent 19 years rallying support for the Eternal Wall, a process that has tested his humility and obedience to follow God’s will. Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer is now being built in the UK and will finish in 2026. Having successfully garnered hundreds of partnerships who want to see the unique project come to fruition, the iconic monument will be a legacy project, future-proofed to inspire and engage generations by proclaiming the deeds of the Lord.