By Faith

“ Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1

To try and wrap your brain around what the author of Hebrews is saying here is not an easy feat. Going into this time of inductively studying this verse, I was kind of drawing a blank until God started to reveal to me the aspect of hope and faith in Christ and how they work hand in hand. In Romans 8:24 it says, “…Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” This is kind of how faith works in our lives, we have faith that when we take each breath, oxygen is going to enter our lungs even though we can’t visibly see it; we have faith that the force of gravity is going to keep us firmly planted on the Earth, but we can’t see that either. Even though we can’t see God as a physical being and we can’t visibly hold His hand as we walk through our trials, he gives us hope and faith through the Holy Spirit that He is there right with us. This is evident in Romans 15:13, it states, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” I struggle with this aspect, that even through my darkest times, the Holy Spirit wants to give me hope and genuine faith that God is there. He wants me to run to Him and look only to Him for comfort. Because of cuts that run deep in my heart I always believe that God will choose everyone else over me and that I am not beautifully and wonderfully made. I don’t always have that genuine faith that Abraham had in God when He was promised to be the father of many nations and died not seeing that promise fully fulfilled. I don’t always believe God’s promises to me, even though He is right there fulfilling them in unimaginable ways. I am learning that beauty and worth comes directly from the cross and that my faith stems from the cross. Also, my hope stems from being broken and hopeless in my own flesh but God, because of what was done on the cross for me, swoops in and picks up all the broken pieces and puts them back together, giving hope and faith to the needy as long as I give it all to Him and don’t hold back. Giving all is hard, but it is a day by day, moment by moment process of throwing out the bad feelings and thoughts and giving the to the Lord and trusting in the grace that was freely given to me.

My application for this week is to have Cait hold me accountable for laying all my insecurities before the Lord and to make a list of lies and truths and for every lie the world tells me to combat that with the truth from the Lord to let Him give me that faith and hope.