FAITH - by Kim Metzer

Faith…it’s been on my mind a lot recently.  I wrote a message on faith last year for Redeemer and used that message again recently at another local church.  Reading it again was a good reminder of what it means to live by faith.

The Bible gives us a description of faith in Hebrews 11:1 - Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

The Message version of this verse, along with verse 2, reads like this: The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.

As I take another step this summer towards licensing as a local pastor in the United Methodist Church, I find myself operating on faith.  Even though this is something I’m called to do, not knowing what the future holds is scary! It is only by turning it all over to God that I’m able to take each step towards the license. 

Hebrews 11 relates several stories of faith where the people in question had to have an enormous amount of faith in God to get by.  One of them is Noah.  As I’m writing this, we’re in the middle of Vacation Bible School week and yesterday I had the opportunity to teach the day’s Bible lesson to the 1st & 2nd grade kids.  The lesson? Noah!  I truly believe God made it possible for me to teach that lesson so that I could be reminded that there are people who’ve taken huge steps of faith and came out better for it in the end.  Seriously, who builds a gigantic boat in their backyard with no body of water nearby and not a hint of rain? Noah!

So, the next time you feel like you just can’t take another step, let go and let God!  Remember, the ark wasn’t built near a large body of water and it most certainly wasn’t built in a day – important things take time!