Is life supposed to feel this hard?
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I’ve had enough
I’m over it. I’ve had enough. I’m over this pandemic & all the fear that comes with it. I’m over being at the receiving end of someone else’s sinful life choices as their selfishness and pride overflow hurtfully in my life. I’m over all the confusion of what is wise, true and required of me. I’m over trying to make sense by that which seems to threaten my ordinary thoughts and life with my family. I’m over the hard things in life.
The world will make you crazy
This is the internal fight I’m having with my head and heart. The world will make you crazy! Can you relate? My fingers want to go crazy on this keyboard describing all the things I’m frustrated with, but it’s no use. It doesn’t really matter. Let me tell you why that’s so.
I’ve been reading through Hebrews. We’re familiar with chapter 11, the Faith Chapter, but don’t miss chapter 10-promise to go back and read through this amazing part of scripture; you won’t be sorry! And here in the Fatih chapter we’ll plop ourselves for this moment, but probably you’ve never considered what’s on my heart and I want you to in the next few minutes.
Faith
Hebrews 11:1 tells us what Fatih is, and we’ve heard it -probaly know this verse by memory:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Greek to me
The Greek word is PISTIS that means FAITH. The root for PISTIS is PEITHO. Peitho: to persuade or be persuaded. So, we find the core meaning of FAITH in these this original language. FAITH: GOD’S DIVINE PERSUASION
FAITH is always FROM God
Believers can participate in faith but never create or being with it on our own. Faith must come from God. With that in mind, I went through Hebrew’s 11 and made some notes. What can and did God do in faith?
The Name and the outcome of FAITH
I’m going to take apart Hebrew’s 11 by the person named by God and what they did by FAITH. What action did divine persuasion precipitate in their life?
By Faith:
Able offered
Enoch was translated
Noah moved
Abraham obeyed
Sara received
Isaac blessed
Joseph made mention
Moses was hid, refused, chose, esteemed, forsook, kept and passed through
Rahab perished not
Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthae, Samuel, the Prophets…
…subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the sword’s edge, *made strong out of weakness,* waxed valiant, turned to flight armies of aliens…
What’s going on in your life?
I know I zoomed through this, and I hate to do that. Go read this in detail after I’m finished. But look, look what happened in every single instance of impossible: faith made a way when there was no way. In the mix of trouble in life, real trouble like what you and I feel this moment, God gave faith: divine persuasion.
Divine Persuasion and Faith
Nothing preceding “by faith” in the life of the person mentioned in these verses was good. Each time, life was looking really bad. But bad, trouble and impossible were not in God’s plan. His perspective was Faith: Divine persuasion.
What if it’s really FAITH?
What if all the trouble and impossible surrounding you and weighing you down emotionally, physically and spiritually is the same as our fellow brothers and sisters out of Hebrews 11? What if this is really God’s hand at work and it’s preceding BY FAITH in our very life this day? What if the turmoil in our country is really God answering the cries of His own? What if what we’re kicking against is the very work of Faith and everything we’re hoping for but have yet to see?
Hard things are part of life
I’ve had to stop and look at every hardship we know about in these verses. Sara got pregnant, friends. God’s promise to Abraham, more seed than the stars and more numerous than the sand was fulfilled in the impossible except by God’s divine interruption convinced only AFTER it came to be, but never less true when it was yet to be manifest. Sara received strength in her life when life tried to mock her, scare her silly and deem her crazy because old women don’t fall pregnant. Remember feeling the horror as Harambe, the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo, dragged the little boy that ended up in his habitat? He was spared. Daniel met the mouths of vicious lions as he was plummeted into their domain. Seems impossible. No one was around to shoot the lions dead, except God’s divine persuasion was at work in Daniel’s hopeless circumstances. I can’t go through every one of these and the pattern of impossible & horrible will come out the same as God’s persuasion affirms His faith in our lives as we choose to trust Him.
Choose to trust Him
Friends, I get it. Life is unpredictable and in a lot of ways it feels like that more than ever before. If only you could be walking beside me this week. You’d see those impossibles. And, you’d see God, too, mostly in the way I’m asking you to find Him in your own life; by faith. I don’t know exactly what comes after the “by faith” in my own life’s story right now, but I”m feeling the crunch of the impossible that precedes it, yet chasing the FAITH God has for me. I know He’s at work, and I cannot wait to see this time what comes next.
Thanking the Lord for what He is doing!
Thank You, Lord. I know you’re writing the story of me and whatever is coming by faith, it’s worth trusting You in and resting in Your love. Thank you!
