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Luke 17:11-19

Taking the First Step

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Luke 17:11-19
Taking the First Step

by Lois Parker Edstrom

A picture of a footprint on the moon is available at:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/ap11ann/FirstLunarLanding/cover.html

When you look at a full, bright moon in the night sky, can you imagine that men actually walked on the moon? Thirty five years ago ( July 20, 1969) millions of people, around the world, watched television to see a man, for the first time, step on the moon. The mission was called Apollo 11 and the first man to step onto the surface of the moon was Neil Armstrong. Soon, another astronaut, “Buzz” Aldrin stepped out of the lunar module and joined Neil Armstrong on the moon. A third member of the space team, Michael Collins, continued to orbit the moon until the other two astronauts were ready to be picked up and return to earth.

When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon he said, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Perhaps you have heard someone use the phrase “a leap of faith.” That means you must make a decision when you don’t have all the facts. When the astronauts blasted off from earth they had a lot of information. But, no one had ever landed on the moon so they were not certain that they would be successful. There were many risks. They had to have confidence in all the people who had worked so hard to make the Apollo 11 mission as safe as possible. When Armstrong stepped onto the moon he was taking a big first step.

There is a story in the Bible in which Jesus asks ten people who had a disease called leprosy to take the first step to be healed. They asked to be healed saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (17:13).

Jesus said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (17:14).

As they traveled they were healed. The healing happened after they obeyed and started on their journey to go to the priests. They took the first step, a big first step, “a leap of faith” in believing that if they did what Jesus told them to do they would be healed. And, they were.

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible

Copyright 2011, Richard Niell Donovan