Faith for the Journey

Editor’s note: This essay came in third place by blind judging for the 2026 Young Adults Writing Contest on the topic of “Sustaining Faith.”

As Christians, we are often familiar with the concept of “the wilderness.” We easily see ourselves in the children of Israel, stumbling on our way toward the Promised Land. Knowing that we cannot sustain our faith on our own, how does God work in our lives to see us through to the other side of the desert? Our destination sure, what keeps our feet running toward our heavenly home?

Many of us can recall stories told by older generations of the trials and difficulties overcome by our forebears. In my family, there is one particular story, told at many holidays and get-togethers over the years, that has stuck with me because it beautifully displays God’s providence in the wilderness.

My grandpa always begins the story from the perspective of his younger self: a deacon at a small-town Iowa church in the 1990s. On an assigned church visit, he went to the home of his mother’s aunt, an elderly widow. Together they read Scripture, prayed, and chatted about extended family. He was just getting up to end the visit when the old woman stopped him, saying, “No, no, sit back down for a bit, I have a story to tell you.” Always a sucker for a good story, my grandpa obeyed and sat down and listened.

As the widow told it, her parents, a young Dutch couple, sought to leave Europe for America in pursuit of a new start around the turn of the 20th century. At the same time, my grandfather's paternal great-grandparents, Albert and Nellie, were farmers in southern Iowa and desired to help sponsor immigrants moving to the United States. Through a long process of communication through letters, Albert and Nellie agreed to sponsor the young couple, promising them a job and a home. However, soon before their departure, the couple found that they were pregnant with their first child. In faith, they decided to proceed with their plans, traveling by ship, wagon, barge, and steamboat—all with a newborn! The journey was difficult, but they safely arrived at Albert and Nellie’s farm in Tracy, Iowa. They were welcomed warmly, but with unfortunate news. The job and home Albert and Nellie had lined up had fallen through. Regardless, Albert and Nellie did all that they could to help the couple, curtaining off a section of their own home for the young family and providing work for the young father as a farmhand.

Despite the improved situation, the travels had taken their toll. Each step of the arduous journey to America had weakened mother and child. The young woman cried, for she realized that she could no longer produce enough milk. The baby was starving! Nellie, herself a mother, familiar with hardship, spoke up. She pointed to her own child and said, “I am still nursing this little boy, and he doesn’t really need it, so I am willing to nurse your baby instead.”

At this point in the story, my grandpa reminds his audience of the elderly widow at the conclusion of her tale. Usually at this place in his emotional narrative, he has succumbed to a tear or two. Moreso, however, does he describe the tears on the wrinkled face, one that had seen years of hardship of its own! The venerable old lady had one last thing left to add to her account.

With glistening eyes she said, “I was that baby, and I owe my life to your great-grandparents.”

Surely God was at work in the lives of these two families so that their descendants could meet one day in God’s name. The Lord orchestrated all these events in his providence, and upon reflection, we are further encouraged to look upon ways in which he upheld his children in the wilderness.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” With a formidable journey ahead, the young Dutch couple no doubt knew that God’s Word doesn’t promise an easy path, only that such a path, difficult though it might be, does in fact, exist, and that it is only made possible by the sovereignty of God and the blood of Jesus. They moved forward in the confidence of God’s promise, so when economic hardship and sickness came, they knew God would provide shoulders to lean on.

The Bible gives us many instances in which individuals relied on others for support, whether it be Elijah and the widow with her jar of oil, Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan, or the members of the early church. In the story of the young immigrants, one family was forced to depend on another for survival. But notice that even while leaning upon each other, all of these people ultimately stood upon the Lord’s promise of provision. The church is a gift from God, giving us strength for the journey, but it is not our ultimate source of fortitude. People are fallible. It is Christ, the infallible, who is our fundamental source of support through the valley and mountaintop.

The Father who has our future secure also promises to provide all that we need for the journey, including the gumption to get us there, supplied through reading his Word. 1 Peter 2:2 commands, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up in your salvation.” Like the infant in the widow’s story, we starve without proper nourishment. But when latched on to the steadfastness of God’s Word, he rescues us from our thirst, providing himself as the Word made flesh. And who is the Word made flesh, the one who sustains us? He who gives manna in the wilderness and brings us into the land of milk and honey. He is the Living Water, the Bread of Life, and the sustenance of our souls.