Faith is a marvelously rich affair, filled with meaning and power. So many want to reduce it to a mere drizzle of belief and Sunday morning ritual, but faith is a torrent, a storm of believing, trusting and going forward in the face of great odds, hardship and personal sacrifice. Faith is a way of living which listens to and obeys the voice of God.
If we were to interview some of those we read of in the Bible who walked by faith, we would get a clearer picture of the meaning of the word. What would Abraham say if we suggested to him that faith was the holding to certain beliefs which caused you to think you had gotten everything right and guaranteed you a place in eternity? Why he’d light off his camel so quickly you’d never guess he was over a hundred years old! Would he not remind us that the Lord called him to leave his home in Ur and go to a place he’d never seen?! Would he not recall that he moved his tent “a hundred times” as he moved about the land of Canaan with no real place to call home?
Would he not point out that he and Sarah waited twenty-five years for God to come through on his promise with the birth of a son - and that came about when Sarah was beyond the age of having children? And then he’d bring up that most trying of events when the Lord God told him to take a three days’ journey to a certain place and there sacrifice his son Isaac whom the Lord had blessed them with! What would Abraham tell us about the struggle in his own heart as he made that trip? How would he describe the faith that moved him to “offer up” his only son, the son of promise?
What would Abraham say about the faith that had empowered him to do all these things and more and yet left him at the end of his life with only a promise from the Lord and no actual realization of what that promise was? What would Abraham tell you about faith, his faith? You and I really need to listen to the voice of Abraham when it comes to faith (Romans 15:4).