April 10
“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance…” (Hebrews 11:13)
When life is good, it is easy to have faith. It is easy to talk about how much God loves us and blesses us… and to speak up about how well He takes care of us.
But what about those times when life isn’t so good? When tragedy or disappointment descend upon our world like a dark, foreboding cloud. What is the status of our faith in those moments where it sure seems God has abandoned us?
In studying the “faith chapter” (Hebrews 11) a couple of things really stand out.
First, God instills His people with a sense of His promises for them, then seems to press the “pause button” on the fulfillment of those promises.
Why?!
Think about our verse for today… God has promised something – but His people did not receive what God had promised. Bottom line: God promised, and it seemed that He didn’t come through on those promises. How should we respond to that?!
It would probably be reasonable to conclude that God isn’t worth our time or our trust. If God doesn’t come through on the things He promises us, why bother to have faith in Him at all?
Second, from God’s perspective, it is more important to Him that we have relentless faith in Him than it is that we get things from Him. He is actually most pleased by a faith that remains undaunted in the midst of every reason to doubt.
Our verse today is centered on God’s promise to Abraham — that he would have descendants “as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.” (Hebrews 11:12) Cool promise! Except for the fact that Abraham was childless at the time!
But here’s the thing: God made His promise to Abraham, but Abraham had to wait 25 years for that promise to have its first fulfillment! What is more, Abraham died before he could ever see, for himself, if God would be faithful to His promise of so many descendants.
Abraham had every reason to doubt God… from the very first moment of the first promise (because of his age) to every moment of waiting (and trusting) afterward. At any second, he could have said: “Maybe I heard God wrong… or maybe God was just joking… or maybe God isn’t able to fulfill His promises at all.”
Who would have blamed Abraham for letting his doubts get the best of him? ALL the evidence would indicate that God wasn’t faithful to keep His promises. And year after year, Abraham would have every reasonable vindication to abandon his faith in such an (apparently) inept and misleading god.
But Abraham’s faith was IN God Himself – and not in what God could do for him.
And that is exactly what we need in our own lives! If we are going to be the kind of faithful believers that God seeks us to be, we need to come to grips with the one issue that matters most… Loving and trusting God for Who He is – and not just for the things we can get out of Him.
That is why (and HOW) God tests our faith. A genuine faith in Him is centered in God Himself – and not just in His promises to us.
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