by faith
Faith is confidence in what we hope for & assurance about what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1
Faith is a choice. It’s choosing to believe, hope and trust that something is as you’ve decided to believe that it is. Religious or not, we have faith all of the time. We have faith in each other: that people will act and react in ways we believe are in line with their character. We have faith in our situations: that we will get up, go to work, receive an income, go to the store, have enough food in the fridge (and toilet paper in the cabinet). We have faith all day long as we trust in what we know to be true, believing in even the smallest parts of our day, like the caffeine in our coffee that we trust to give us the feeling of life. Faith is a confidence in what we know to be true.
But faith in God is not so concrete. It’s a confidence in the unseen, based on the character of someone we very much know, though have never physically met. Faith in God is choosing to believe in Him, in who He is. It’s choosing to believe that what He says is true, regardless of what we can see in our current experience. It’s choosing to believe so fully in hope - which in itself is a version of trust - that we are confident about what has not yet happened.
Faith is the choice to move past hope into certainty of the unknown.
We are living in such a state of uncertainty right now. For many of us, the things we’ve put our trust in are no longer there. Some of us have lost jobs, which stripped away purpose and identity along with a reliable income. Some of us love people who are carrying so much trauma or anxiety that they feel like someone else and we feel alone though trapped with others. Some of us, ourselves, are so overcome with emotion that we can’t even explain that we don’t recognize who we are and feel out of control of our own lives. We can’t access the things that we didn’t even realize brought us joy or fulfillment: the option of leaving your kitchen clean to eat somewhere else. The solice and solitude that heavy traffic provided for decompression on a long commute home. The buzz and energy of the presence of other people that we didn’t know helped us feel connected among mundane tasks like getting groceries at the same time. The confidence and refreshing that we felt when we could get a haircut or swing in to pick up a refill concealer, the little things that made us feel like ourselves. There is so much that we don’t currently know, that we can not plan or answer for. The things we put our trust in have been ripped away and it leaves us feeling like we’re drowning, treading water at best. Yes, even those of us who say we put our trust in the Lord feel overwhelmed, confused, scared and unsettled.
Last night I was texting with my sweet friend Nicki and my conversation with her felt restorative. She asked what has been hard and didn’t offer suggestions to make it easier. She didn’t pretend like concurrent homeschooling and working full time was a normal thing that I should be able to manage. She didn’t tell me to pray about it or find time to rest or to have more faith and believe. She didn’t give me something else to do, to learn from this, to look for the lesson or to ask God what He wants from me or who He wants me to be in this season. She listened. She made me feel supported, understood and seen. And she prayed for me, specifically that God would work while I was sleeping and I would wake up with a holy expectancy of a sweet gift straight from Him to me today.
I didn’t sleep well last night, as it has been this season. But I woke up, made my coffee (still putting trust in the sweet nectar), breathed in the sunshine and opened my Bible to the random page where I left off the other day when I got a phone call and my reading plan was derailed. It was Hebrews 11 and the first sentence I read was the one above. “Now faith is a confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Okay, God, I see you. Faith is a choice to believe that you are good and you have goodness in the future. I have to choose to stay positive. I have to choose to focus on your heart. I have to choose to believe that better days are ahead. Then I kept reading. Here’s a summary of Hebrews 11.
By faith Abel brought a better offering than Cain did & showed that he was righteous.
By faith Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience death.
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, built an ark to save his family.
By faith Abraham obeyed and went to where he was called, even though he did not know where he was going.
By faith Sarah, who was past childbearing age, had a child. Because she chose to believe God would follow through on His promises.
At this point I had tears trying to spill out, reading about these people who chose to believe God in the midst of hard, unknown seasons. Then I turned the page.
By faith Abraham, when God asked him to sacrifice his only son, obeyed.
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau for their future.
By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons and worshipped God as he left the earth.
By faith Joseph instructed the Israelites on how to carry on without him.
By faith Moses’ parents hid him from a king who ordered him to be murdered.
By faith Moses chose to be mistreated along with his people instead of living an easy life of royalty.
By faith the Israelites walked through the Red Sea, walls of water looming like we can’t even fathom.
By faith the Israelites walked around a city until it’s walls crumbled to their foundation.
By faith Rahab illegally hid spies yet was saved from the punishment of destruction.
“And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames and escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.” (11:32-34)
These people, these real actual people, went through seasons of difficulty, death and destruction. When we read their stories, we know what’s coming. We know the peril they’re walking into and we know how their stories end. But they didn't. These are the accounts of their actual lives and just like the weird, uncertain time we’re in now, they didn’t know how long it would last, how bad it would get or when it would be over. But by faith, they chose to move past the hope of what they desired, to believe confidently in what God had promised. Tears and fears not withstanding, they chose to believe in the goodness of God (who they knew in their souls) and take action as He directed, even when the only steps they knew were to get up each day and go forward, trusting that He would direct them in His time and reveal new information as they needed to know it.
What a picture of our current season. What a gift God gave to me (to us) this morning in a very concrete list of people who lived by faith, whose stories became evidence of the certainty of the unknown.
Many of these people did not receive the things that were promised to them. They did not see the fulfillment of what they desired, longed for, worked for, even suffered for. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance (11:13) because they were only part of the story. They were all commended for their faith, for living in hope, but none of them received what had been promised. Their lifetimes did not see the fulfillment of all they hoped for because God had something better planned for us. So that only together, with us, would they be made perfect and see faith fulfilled. (11:39-40)
We are part of the same story. This moment in time does not surprise God. Life has happened for years before us and it will continue on for years after us. There will be more stories, more upheaval and more heroes. I hope that at the end of this season, we all approach life and each other a little bit differently. If nothing else, let’s remember that it’s not about what we can see or feel or experience. But let’s live each day as a choice, believing confidently that there is something even better planned than we can currently see or hope for.
