Faith

How to Persevere & Receive the Promise

My wife and I are blessed with good neighbors, but Pat is in a class by himself. Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being. (1 Cor 10:29)

Aside from me driving some nails, Pat built the raised garden bed for me to grow vegetables this summer. Pat held his ladder for me while I gingerly climbed to the top to get leaves out of my gutters. Pat’s electric tiller that I used several weeks ago is still in my garage. 

Pat picked up an aerator for three of us homeowners to service our lawns last Sunday. His newest project is rebuilding his backyard fence. In the process, one of the old fence posts cracked and left a stump cemented into the ground.

We begin our conversation on faith here. If you observe closely, you will see yourself in this illustration.

Pat and I spent some time with the pickaxes, but the post didn’t budge. Next, he used a metal pry bar with a sharp edge to break up more dirt and clay. We then went back-and-forth with the pry bar and pickaxes to no avail. 

Undaunted, Pat drilled a hole through the post, ran a chain through the hole, and used a wooden plank as a lever to pry up the stump. We cracked two pieces of wood in the process. Finally, we used the pry bar as the lever, and the stump came out of the ground at last.

Intrigued, I later asked Pat if he ever doubted he would get that stump out of the ground. He said he got tired and frustrated, but he knew it was coming out one way or another. I was out of my comfort zone the whole time, but not Pat. He has a knack for finding solutions to hands-on projects.

There is a little bit of Pat in all of us, and a little bit of us in Pat. We all have God-given talents and strengths. We each have our comfort zones. When we run into a problem in an area of strength, we find a way to get things done. 

In the arena of faith, it is not that easy. God intentionally calls us to trust Him outside of our comfort zones. He deliberately places us on unfamiliar paths with people that are -shall we say- not our type. 

At points along our walk of faith, we experience vulnerability and must accept some level of risk. Be encouraged because God will have us kill the lion and the bear before we face Goliath. (1 Sam 17:36) In other words, God will equip us in advance for every test.

The Bible defines faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Heb 11:1) The writer of Hebrews takes the rest of chapter 11 to unpack that one verse.

I arrived at my own definition of faith about 15-20 years ago through the school of hard knocks: Faith is perseverance in the face of apparent failure. Apparent failure? Yes. Appearances suggest that you are failing or that you will fail. You must stay committed and trust God.

God calls us to walk in faith in our areas of weakness so that out of our weakness, He can make us strong. The Apostle Paul said that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness. (2 Cor 12:9)

Our challenge is to sustain our faith –through discomfort and uncertainty- long enough to receive the aim of our faith. One of the ways God encourages us is through Biblical role models. Hebrews 11 is full of these role models.

These individuals encourage us because they believed God and saw promises fulfilled despite their flaws and weaknesses. We learn from them that the committed, not the gifted and talented, receive the rewards of faith.

The walk of faith includes stretches where we get knocked flat. The faithful get back up and keep their feet moving through pain, frustration, and delays. 

For every promise of God, there is a process we must go through before we receive the promise. 

Faith is perseverance in the face of apparent failure. Keep your feet moving towards the prize at all costs, and you will not fall short. You are a faith-champion in the making. God Bless! Press On!! Kevin