He Brews…Faith (Pt. 1)
How many of you have experienced the feeling of not being able to continue on? Well, if you’re unfamiliar with Hebrews 11 and 12, this is your sign to become familiar! I have come to love these chapters of the Bible because of how perspective-shifting they are on matters of faith and endurance in faith. For now, I want to specifically focus on chapter 11. Two of my favorite verses are verse one which reads, “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see,” and verse 38 which remarks, “They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.”
I think my intrigue over these verses have to do with the dichotomies they both express. For starters, how does it make sense to trust in something we cannot see? Moreover, this “trust,” in essence, is the catalyst and the requirement for that very thing we are hoping for to suddenly become reality…it’s mind-blowing and incomprehensible, humanly speaking. Yet, I believe this is such a crucial component of faithfully following Jesus that we miss over and over; I would dare say it becomes impossible to find Him when the extent of our seeking Him rests on receiving explanations for everything we can’t see with our own two eyes. Of course it’s going to become more difficult as we venture forth because having faith is a whole “birthing process” that takes time for God to work out in our lives – after all, don’t pregnancies usually last nine months? It takes God time to “knit” a baby in its mother’s womb, and once that baby is born, the mother realizes it was all worth it for that precious life; this is the same reality of living for Jesus, and the reason many turn away from Him. We live in a world that demands their faith be seen and desires quickly quenched; we’re an impatient people. The faith walk just ain't cheap…you’re mining for the real diamond, not simply walking in the store to purchase the lab-grown gem.
This, I believe, is why the author of Hebrews deems the champions of the faith “too good for this world,” because there was no “home” for them on earth; they placed little value on temporary, earthly material and knowledge. What I mean by this is not that they never felt a sense of home with their loved ones nor that they never had houses, but instead that they just didn’t truly belong to this world – they never totally “fit in,” and they were okay with that. They knew what they were living for was beyond the physical (this is where many give up on their walk with God). They chose to reach for that which they knew they would never fully understand until they were face-to-face with the living God. They chose to believe over and over again that He is who He says He is, and that His affection for them is (unironically) otherworldly. Even while they didn’t always get everything they wanted physically, they operated from an abundance inwardly; their fuel was the fire of the Holy Spirit, enough to keep them trudging through life’s most difficult circumstances, and their reward was the presence of their Beloved being everything they could ever desire and more. When it was all said and done, the Lord Most High was their beginning, middle, and end… that was the point regardless of who they were with or where they were.
To live this type of life, this type of extreme faith…it’s beyond words how difficult this is and yet how literally a life apart from Christ is no life at all. It’s not an easy road, and it seems to get narrower as it goes. But let me ask you this, if all your goals and deepest desires are purely chained to the accomplishments and valuables you can attain on this earth, tell me, which of these can you take with you when your mortal body passes away? My friend, there is hope; you were made for more. Your soul was made to live and to last, and it will last with the One who Created it. But you must believe over and over again; you must have faith.
“Seeing isn’t believing. Believing is seeing.” - The Santa Clause (hard-hitting truth from an unforeseen source).
