Today’s scripture: Hebrews 11:8-22 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Steve Adams):
Thank God for faith! Where would we be without it? It’s like a powerful and efficient engine that propels your car. You can’t really get anywhere without it. Life requires so much faith just to get through one day. And a healthy, robust spiritual life requires even more.
Abraham and the others who were heroes of faith had something profound in common: they loved God deeply from their hearts. So when God revealed a part of God’s plan to them, they wanted to help bring it to pass and they committed themselves to doing just that. Just think of the enormous amount of time, energy, and sweat that Noah put into building the ark, when he could have been doing other things. But, that’s just it; faith gives you such a fervent, burning passion to jump into doing God’s will, that it becomes what you really WANT to do, deep down in your heart.
One quality this passion brings to life in a person of faith is something that doesn’t come easy for many. It’s patience, not relying on instant gratification, but being willing to delay the fulfillment of the promise for days, years, even perhaps after our lifetime (verses 13-17). Only spiritual grounding can give us this kind of patience and perseverance, a patience that comes from God.
One of the hardest things about faith, for me, is that it can seem unreasonable, or too hard, or too scary. Sometimes it seems to make sense to quit. Take Noah, for example. If I had been him, I’m sure that I would have come to a point of saying, “This just doesn’t make sense. It must not have been God telling me to build this monstrosity that people are laughing at. How’s a flood going to be THAT big to wipe out the whole earth?” But, in his story, it WAS God who gave him the command; so he kept at it, one step at a time.
It’s inspiring to remember that faithfulness is one of the fruit of the spirit, listed in Galatians 5:22. I think when we immerse ourselves in the Spirit — in God, then faith happens spontaneously in our lives. It effervesces out of our souls into everyday life! It may be the perseverance to continue something we’ve been doing for decades, or it may be the courage to start something brand new that we never dreamed we’d be a part of.
Thought for the day: God, thank you for faith. Thank you for giving us this powerful ability that we can exercise for your glory.
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.