The eyes of faith

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Any tragedy, great or small, forces us to acknowledge our humanity. This realization often leaves us depressed or immobilized. Through difficulty or disaster, many turn to God; others turn on Him, blaming Him for the difficulty and forgetting that while God loves us, He never promises to protect us from evil.

Yet many still find strength in God. The upward look is the look of faith. As the writer of Hebrews put it: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

You may say, “I can’t see Him!” But you can, by faith! The classic passage that describes faith is Hebrews 11. Here the writer talks about those who believed God in the face of great difficulties, and says, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13 esv).

Faith means getting your eyes off your trouble, the loss you have experienced, your difficulty and turning them over to the Lord. In prison for his faith, suffering at the hands of Romans, Paul wrote to Timothy, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Timothy 1:12).

Paul knew that faith rests in the knowledge that God is good and puts into His strong hand what you can neither reverse nor change. He will be there to welcome you and to walk with you through the long day.