Believing the Promise

Faith is not blind. It merely sees beyond one set of circumstances to look at a reality promised by a higher authority. Fortunately, we do not have to make up a set of rules or principles to follow. Instead, we have a pattern to follow in the scriptures themselves.

The Bible is not written as a theology textbook or a magical recipe book. Instead, it contains stories - of how real people encountered a very real God. If you want to learn how to exercise faith, treat these stories as case studies, enter into them and see what they saw.

Abraham was just like us. He had to deal with situations that are as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago. The veneer of civilisation may fool us into thinking that we have nothing to learn from a society which did not depend on mobile phones or computers to communicate.; but his concerns about his family strike a resonant chord to a world where humans have not changed, despite the sophisticated technology that surrounds us.

Infertility is a multi-million dollar business in the developed world. Abraham and his wife were no strangers to the stresses and worries that accompany the inability to conceive. In Romans ch.4 we learn some interesting insights into Abraham's response to the situation.

He did not go around denying the reality of his situation, he looked at his predicament and assessed it clearly. He knew what he faced.

But he also knew that the Good Lord had spoken. And that this word called for a reality that wasn't his experience at that point. He was faced with a choice. Believe the evidence of his eyes. Or believe the evidence of the promise.

Not a simple path - a hard choice when the facts seem stacked up against you. But it was a decision that Abraham had to face for himself. No-one else could face it for him. The good news is, that as he continued to feed that faith, so his confidence grew stronger that the promises God had clearly made to him would be fulfilled.

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