What the Doxa Logo Means, and Why a Promise Can Be Further Than It Looks

The Doxa mark is a range of mountains with a path leading through them. It pictures the whole journey of knowing God: what He says to you is encouragement for the long road, and you walk that road one step at a time. Daily Faith Steps, new in Doxa 3.0, is where you record each step.

Look at a range of mountains from a long way off and the peaks seem to stand in one line, all the same distance away. Walk toward them and the picture changes. Some are much further back. Some are closer than you thought. Some are far bigger. From where you stand, the distance and the relief are hard to see.

Garth Watson, who founded Doxa, puts it like this:

So it is with our journey with the Lord. Often the things He says to us are encouragements for our whole journey.

Encouragement for the whole journey

Scripture is full of people who heard from God and carried what He said for years.

Joseph was seventeen (Genesis 37:2) when he dreamed about his brothers: "suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to mine" (Genesis 37:7). Then came the pit, slavery in Egypt and prison. He was thirty when he entered Pharaoh's service (Genesis 41:46), and after that his brothers came to buy grain and "bowed down before him with their faces to the ground" (Genesis 42:6). Looking back along the whole road, he told them, "what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good" (Genesis 50:20).

David was the youngest son, out tending the sheep, when Samuel came to his father's house (1 Samuel 16:11). Samuel anointed him in front of his brothers, "and the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward" (1 Samuel 16:13). Years of waiting and running followed. "David was thirty years old when he became king" (2 Samuel 5:4).

God told Abram, "I will make you into a great nation" (Genesis 12:2), and "Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran" (Genesis 12:4). Later God took him outside under the night sky and said, "Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able" (Genesis 15:5). "Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him" (Genesis 21:5). Twenty-five years lay between leaving Haran and the son.

Each of them heard something that looked close. Each of them found it further off than it first seemed, and each of them held on.

Prophecy is like the mountains

Sometimes the fulfilment of what God has said looks close and imminent, and then it turns out to be further away. Hebrews says of the people of faith: "All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar" (Hebrews 11:13).

Garth again:

As you hold to it, engage with it again and again, remember it because you recorded it, and recall it, it can re-encourage you for every step.

This is endurance. It means taking the next step, being bold, and stepping out with the courage that comes from hearing God. Steps of faith need courage, strength and comfort, and each time you go back to God's encouragement, it can give you all three. "Let us run with endurance the race set out for us" (Hebrews 12:1).

The point is to know Him

Why does God speak at all? The point of God speaking is that you would know Him. The point of all Scripture is to know Him more deeply, step by step, along the journey. Jesus said, "this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God" (John 17:3).

Prophecy has a stated purpose. "He who prophesies speaks to men for their edification, encouragement, and comfort" (1 Corinthians 14:3). That encouragement serves a larger end: to know God, to "be found in Him" (Philippians 3:9), and to be known by Him, because "the one who loves God is known by God" (1 Corinthians 8:3). In the Old Testament, the word for this kind of knowing is yada, knowing a person by experience (more on yada). Every step on the path is a step further into knowing Him.

Daily Faith Steps: record the step you are on

Daily Faith Steps is the new daily journal in Doxa 3.0, and its name comes from the mark. Each entry is a step: a few lines about today with God. A step can hold:

• What God is showing you. Or a verse that stood out.
• A gratitude, or a sign of His faithfulness. Something from today to thank Him for.
• A prayer. When it is answered, mark it Answered and record the story of what happened.
• A thought. Anything from today you want to keep.

Here is how it works:

1. Tap the middle button in the tab bar to add a step. Type it or speak it.
2. Write a step on a verse. It shows beside that verse each time you read it again, in every translation.
3. Link a step to Scripture or to a record in your Encouragement Vault. The record then shows the steps that link to it.

Write a few lines on the days you can, and pick it up again whenever you come back.

Remembering and returning

Recording is where remembering starts, because you can only return to what you wrote down. Over weeks and months your steps become a path you can look back along: the prayers God answered, the verses that carried you, and the encouragements still ahead of you like the far mountains.

Going back to them is how something God said years ago strengthens you again today. Keep the big encouragements in your Encouragement Vault. Keep the daily walk in Daily Faith Steps. Both point to the same place: knowing the God who speaks.

Take today's step

Doxa exists so that every person knows the God who speaks, by recording and remembering what He has said and done, and being encouraged for their whole journey. Daily Faith Steps is where that happens each day.

Download Doxa, tap the middle button, and record today's step.