"Where's Your Faith?

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”   Hebrews 11:1

The eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews is known as the faith chapter. It recounts the faith and exploits of great people of the Old testament.  It also records the hardships, trials and great persecution and terrible mistreatment.

Faith is not getting what I want, or having things work out as I planned.  Faith is not even dependent on God fulfilling His promises; for in the Bible's greatest chapter on faith, we find this statement about these people of faith, “Though they trusted God and won his approval, none of them received all that God had promised them; for God wanted them to wait and share the even better rewards that were prepared for us.” Hebrews 11:39-40.

Many of us bereaved parents prayed for the healing of our sick child or recovery for our injured child, and that did not physically happen.  Sometimes there are those who would say that it was because we did not have enough faith.  However, the above Scripture clearly knocks that idea down.

To have faith in God is to have faith no matter what happens! Prayer is not so much getting things from God as it is getting God's viewpoint about things. Seeking the mind of Christ, thinking God's thoughts is not an easy thing to do.  But ultimately we need to have faith in God, not in our ideas about God.

We can never fully understand God, but we can believe that in His time He will keep all His promises and one of those we can cling to in our journeys of grief is that He said, “I will never, never fail you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5