It Was By Faith...

Saturday, 07 Jun 2003

"It was by faith"...it says over and over again in Hebrews 11. (New Living Translation)

"It was by faith," not luck, "that the people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as though they were on dry ground. But when the Egyptians followed, they were all drowned." (Verse 29)

"It was by faith," not coincidence, "that Noah built an ark to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about something that had never happened before." (Verse 7)

"It was by faith," not by knocking on wood, "that Sarah together with Abraham was able to have a child, even though they were too old and Sarah was barren." (Verse 11)

"It was by faith," not by crossing their fingers, "that the people of Israel marched around Jericho seven days, and the walls came crashing down." (Verse 30)

"It was by faith," not happenstance, "that Rahab the prostitute did not die with all the others in her city who refused to obey God." (Verse 31)

And what is faith?

"It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see." (Verse 1)

"So take a new grip with your tired hands and stand firm on your shaky legs." (Hebrews 12:12)

Every day, every day, every day!! Hold on tight, because life is a wild ride!! It can leave us with tired hands and very shaky legs! If we are knocking on wood or crossing our fingers to get through it, we are not living by faith!!

Do you know what is not a coincidence? The plans of God in our lives. Sometimes we see things as "Wow, isn't that something! How did that happen at just that time? Must be a coincidence!"
At least until we grow enough in our faith to realize that nothing is a coincidence.
I mean, is God running this world, or is He not? If He is not, then all things are just happenstance, coincidence or good/bad luck.
If He is running this world, then nothing happens that He has not planned, thought through, ordained and moved upon with His Mighty Hand.
Which is it? How you answer that question depends on what your faith is in...

The Bible says in Hebrews 10:38, "a righteous person will live by faith." A person is made righteous by believing in the Son of God, being cleansed by His blood that was shed on the cross, and accepting His plan of salvation. That's when faith kicks in! That's when we can run with it, or drop the ball and still struggle on our own. Our salvation is not lost by crossing our fingers or knocking on wood, but our peace is lost because we have forgotten Who is in control. We have forgotten to trust in the Lord for all our needs!

Do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord, no matter what happens.
Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what
you need now, so you will continue to do God's will. Then you will
receive all that he has promised. (Hebrews 10:35-36)

God has not promised us a life without trials, He has promised us the help to get through them.

Example:
Do you want to see God work through a situation that is not fun, that is upsetting, that calls for big decisions, but one that God can handle and is pleased to if we will only just cry out to Him?

My parents have travelled full-time for almost five years. They have pulled their trailer with a van that is ten-plus years old. It has weathered every storm, had its share of break-downs, but always been fixable. Just this last week or so, their travel plans were coming to an end. My Dad has some health issues that need closer attention, and it seemed that it was time to stop driving back and forth across the United States. This is upsetting because they greatly enjoy this life-style. (And you wonder why Jim and I live in a "trailer?")

My mom cried out to God and asked for a sign that it was really time to head back to California. In that very same week, their van broke down and it is not worth fixing. Also, to replace it and keep travelling would require more money than they are able to spend.
Simply bad luck, or a direct answer from God?

Thus, the call came to Jim and me, "could you please come and pull our trailer home?" I had mentioned to my parents just recently, that if they ever got stuck, they could call on us. Our new truck could pull their trailer home.
Coincidence, or God's preparation for what was to come?

We are making plans to head to Colorado tomorrow and bring their "home" and them back this way. It works out to not only be a pretty free week for us, but something else...many months ago I knew a time was coming when I would not care to be around town. It would be the time when Phil would be graduating from High School and I would start to see the caps and gowns on the graduates in the cars around here. I would also be responsible to answer the phone calls at work about graduation events and baccalaureate ceremonies. It would be a painful time to be here...
Happenstance, or God's provisions to take us away and spare us extra pain this week?

As we bring my parents back to California, they will be needing a new vehicle. Not one that necessarily needs to pull a trailer, since they will be putting their "home" in storage in Las Vegas until the winter months, but one that would get them around to doctors and others places they needed to be. Just this week, my aunt told them that she had always planned on giving them her car when she was ready for a new one, and just this week she bought that new car. Not only did God send them a sign by disabling their van, but He took care of the problem by providing a car!
Good luck, or God's blessings?

So Sunday, we will drive to Colorado, and spend Tuesday celebrating my Dad's birthday with them as we all take the Cog Railway to the top of Pike's Peak, elevation 14,000 feet! Then we will hook up the trailer and head back this way, being able to spend time with my parents during this transition in their lives, and easing the load that they would carry alone if we were not there to help them.
Accomplished by knocking on wood, or the family of God working as one?

This is a real life episode, this is not a made up scenario of what it means to walk by faith, to call out to God in our distress, and to see His workings in our lives. This is what gets us through the hard times, not without tears, not without hard decisions, but with the help that God has promised to provide when we live by faith and not by our own strength.

Yes, this could be accomplished on our own, and yes we could chalk it all up to coincidence and bad/good luck, but we would be missing out on all God's help and the many blessings that God is showering down in the midst of our trials.

When all you owned was taken from you, you accepted
it with joy. You knew you had better things waiting for
you in eternity. (Hebrews 10:34b)

Sometimes joy is accompanied by tears, because life can be difficult. God knows that. But through those tears, are many beautiful rainbows.

My best-friend called me from Florida the other day. She was witnessing one of the most beautiful rainbows she had ever seen. She said it was like taking a color-crayon and drawing it across the sky! But it did not come without a storm! She said they had just had the most torrential one-and-a half hour storms she had ever seen, and Florida has lots of storms!! I know, because the last time I was there I thought I would rust! It never seemed to dry out! Water was falling from the sky, it was all over the ground, and soaking everything in sight almost the entire time I was there! The airport had even shut down right after my plane landed because it was storming so bad.

But, this rainbow that she shared with me was the best!!
Why? Because it followed the worst!
God's promises, or just the luck of the draw?

We can stare at the storms, if we want to, or we can wait them out and look for the rainbows!
We can live by faith, or we can live by whatever seems to happen next and ignore God's hand in it all. But "Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him." (Hebrews 11:6b)

When we seek Him, we will find Him. He promises us that. When we knock on His door, that door will be opened and when ask Him for help, we will receive an answer. It may not be the one we were looking for, and it may confuse us for a time, but if we will keep looking for the rainbow, we will see it. It is not just about what happens here, and it is not just about what we can see with our own eyes - it is about what God has planned for us in eternity.

All these faithful ones died without receiving what
God had promised them, but they saw it all from a distance
and welcomed the promises of God. (Hebrews 11:13)

Sometimes we won't see immediate answers like vans breaking down and having our travel plans coming to such an abrupt end. Sometimes we will have to wait for heaven to see the clear and complete picture as to what God is doing, but that does not make it any less so. It only calls for us to have faith that it is so, and that God does know what is best, and to trust Him with all our hearts! Easy? Not in the least? But well worth the wait!

When Noah built the ark, he had never even seen rain! He built a boat on dry land that saved his entire family and all the animals of the earth! That is faith!

Because Sarah and Abraham believed God about having a child in their old age, a whole nation came from this one man. They did not live to see it, but it was no less so.

When God parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could pass through safely, they were allowed to witness God's mighty power right before their very eyes. Still, they needed faith to walk through with that water piled high on both sides because it was waiting to drown the Egyptians who followed behind them.

Rahab was a prostitute. She had offered help to some spies, not knowing if she would be saved in the process, but trusting in God and having faith in His promises. She was not disappointed.

Some rewards are visible, tangible, and very fast. For some rewards we will wait our entire lives and never see them until we pass through those heavenly gates. Either way, we will not be disappointed. God is faithful, and He is asking us to be faith-full also!! How do we do this?

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our
faith depends from start to finish. He was willing to die a
shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew
would be his afterward. (Hebrews 12:2)

He did not see everything come to pass on this earth. Even being God's very own Son, He had to live a life of faith while He was here.

It makes me think of a picture that is on the wall of our lunchroom at the church. It is a drawing of Jesus bowed in prayer before a meal. I looked at that picture the other day and thought about Jesus' prayer life. He was the Son of God, and He was bowed in prayer talking with His Father in heaven. He was well aware that this is not all there is. He was well aware that there is a whole spiritual realm out there that we cannot see, but that we need to connect with. By simply closing His eyes and bowing His head, He was connecting in spirit with His Father in heaven. By praying, He was acknowledging that the spiritual world does exist.

Isn't that what God calls us to do? To simply acknowledge Him in that realm, to connect with the spiritual world, and to realize that this is not all there is? That we are spiritual beings who inhabit a body for a short time, and that there is so much more to this life than we can see? If Jesus, the Son of God, who had already seen heaven, connected to that world while He was here by praying, should we do any less?  There must be tremendous power there, tremendous help to be found, and a tremendous amount of wisdom that God wants to share with us if we will only take the time to ask Him!

I enjoy watching God work. I enjoy asking Him for help and I am even starting to enjoy His timing with the answers. That part takes more effort because being human, we want things to happen a lot more quickly than they do. But when they do happen, it always amazes me just how perfect God's timing is, and I am learning to trust Him more and more for His timing for all things. It is a process of learning.

It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt.
He was not afraid of the king. Moses kept right on
going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible.
(Hebrews 11:27)

Even Moses in the Old Testament, "kept his eyes on the one who is invisible." He was not unlike us, he had to stay focused! It was his only hope! Not only that, he had a whole race of people who were following him, watching his example of faith.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge
crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every
weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so
easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance
the race that God has set before us. (Hebrews 12:1)

People are watching us. We are watching others, and we are learning as we go. When Phil was battling cancer and facing more rounds of maintenance chemotherapy, we prayed to God for a sign. We needed to know just how far to go with the chemotherapy and when to concentrate on the quality of life he had left to live. I prayed for lightening bolts from God because I knew we needed to be CLEAR on what we were to do with our son's life. Well, Phil almost died, suddenly needing multiple transfusions, and it became very clear to us that his chemotherapy should be stopped. If we continued giving him more treatments, they could kill him before the cancer even did.

My parents watched that happen in our lives, we shared with them our decisions and how we came to them, and they saw God answer a very serious prayer about a life and death situation. They saw God work in our lives and how God blessed us with another year of life for Phil even though he was off of all chemotherapy. It wasn't fun, it wasn't easy, but was a time in our lives, in Phil's life, when decisions needed to be made and we needed the wisdom of God to tell us what to do.

Living by faith, asking God for help, and seeing Him work in our lives, helps others when they are faced with difficult decisions. We learn from one another, just as we learn from all those in Hebrews, Chapter 11 who lived by faith. Their trials and their stories help us to know that we are not alone, that God does provide and we are not the first, nor will we be the last who call on Him and seek His provisions. Some provisions will be seen on this earth, some will be seen in eternity.

Well, how much more do I need to say? It would take too
long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak,
Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets.
By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with
justice, and received what God had promised them.
(Hebrews 11:32-33)

God is our Provider, when we call on Him! No situation is unimportant, no situation is insignificant, no situation is out of God's control! He will take vans away and replace them with a car - he will stop the flow of healthy blood, thus requiring multiple transfusions, and then give another year of life - and He will send the most beautiful rainbows after the worst of storms if we will only look up and keep our eyes upon Jesus!!

Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say
we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.
(Hebrews 10:23)

It is by faith that we can live in His peace and joy,
Diane