Stories of Faith: Seeing Is Believing?

A lot of people aren't very well acquainted with the biblical book of Numbers.  As the title suggests, there are some incidents of counting of the people contained inside.  However, there are also a number of very interesting stories included as the freed people of Israel wandered in the wilderness.

In fact, the primary reason for the 40 years of the wilderness wanderings is found in the book of Numbers.  Read through Numbers 13 and Numbers 14 and you will find that reason.  To summarize it, the people had been freed from Egypt, and God was prepared to lead them to the land that had been promised to Abraham centuries earlier.  So Moses sent 12 spies, one from each of the tribes, to go spy out the land.  They went and saw a wonderfully fruitful land, but they also noticed something else.  There were a lot of powerful people living in that land.  For 10 of the spies, this proved to be too much.  They reported back to Moses that there was no way they could claim the land, since the people already there would easily defeat their army.  They even spread word about this throughout the camp, causing the people to wonder why God had brought them out of Egypt in the first place.

Only two spies thought it was possible.  Caleb and Joshua were two men who saw the same thing as the other 10, but remembered how God had brought them out of Egypt.  The people of Israel had done nothing to rescue themselves from Egypt. God had done it all, and all the people there had been witnesses of God's mighty hand at work.  So Caleb and Joshua reported back that God would be able to give them the victory.  However, their voices were drowned out by the other 10, which then caused God to pronounce the judgement that the people's unbelief would mean that the whole current generation would not enter the promised land.  They would die in the wilderness for their lack of faith, and their children would then inherit the land.

As people of the faith of Abraham, this is also our story.  These are our ancestors of the faith, and we see a lot of them in ourselves still today.  Remember, these people had seen God's great work in freeing them from Egypt, but now, just over a year later, they didn't believe that God would truly give them the land as easily.  They doubted even though they had seen God's great miracles.  They saw only the might of their arms and that of their enemies, and pictured victory only based on human strength.

How often have we focused primarily on what we are capable of, and then given up, simply because we could not see how God could truly accomplish something great?  One of the things that I have come to believe is that we try to leave God in a no-win situation when it comes to miracles and His mighty work.  We want Him to do something of our choosing and design, and to do it now, but then, when we face obstacles and challenges that He is more than willing to give strength and guidance toward, we turn instead to our own capabilities, and then give up when we realize that we can't do them on our own.  I could give numerous examples of this, but I am sure that you can come up with your own too.

That's part of the story of faith.  Far too often, we are like the 10.  We see and hear and believe that God has done great things, but we fail to believe that He will continue to act as we move forward in life.  That causes us to give up when we really should rely upon God's strength and faithfulness, and so we end up wandering the wilderness, wondering where it all went wrong, and why God isn't doing something about our situation.

Stories: Through the Sea!

When you read through Exodus 14, you hear of the escape that the Israelites had from Egypt.  God had done great miracles, driving Pharoah to send them away, especially after the last plague, the death of the firstborn, had caused Pharoah to lose his own son.  However, this escape seemed to be short-lived.

It may have seemed to the Israelites that God wasn't all that good at giving directions.  He led them down to a place where Pharoah's army (after his change of heart) were pursuing them, and they were cut off against the Red Sea.  No place to go.  Had God led them to a dead end for a reason?

That's when God told Moses to stretch out his staff over the water, and the waters parted, and the Israelites walked across on dry ground.  Once they were through, then the waters crashed down, destroying the pursuing Egyptians, and bringing Israel to a place of freedom.

As people who are descendants of Abraham through our faith, this is a story from our history.  In a sense, God did this for our ancestors.  He saved our ancestors from slavery, and He did it all by His own mighty hand and outstretched arm.  There was no way that the Israelites could claim that they had freed themselves.  God had brought them through the water, rescuing them from slavery and death as they passed through on dry ground.

This is our story.  It's the story of our faith, as well.  God brings us out from the place of death and slavery, and the way He does so is through water.  That's what the water of Christian baptism is.  In that action of God, He rescues us from the death our sins deserve and our slavery to sin.  He brings us to new life as His Spirit is placed in us, and as we receive His promise of hope, forgiveness, and eternal life.

That's how we are connected to the story of the Israelites escaping Egypt through the Red Sea.  In a way, they were baptized in their rescue, and we are baptized in our rescue.  In both cases, it is the work of God, God making us His own, and doing so as He designs.

A Story of Beginnings

"Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them."  Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."  And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.  Genesis 15:5-6

All stories require a starting point.  As it is said, the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.  So as we think about the stories of our faith (our stories!), I want to do so with the promise that the LORD God gave to Abram (Abraham).

Abram and Sarai, his wife, were elderly, beyond child-bearing years.  Yet, after telling them to leave his father's house and land, Abram moved to the land which is now Israel.  God gave Abram a great promise, that he would be the father of nations, and that his offspring would be more numerous than the stars in the sky and the dust of the earth.  The verse above comes from Genesis 15, where God confirms that covenant with Abram.

Our stories of faith begin, in many respects, with this story.  Yes, the story of creation, and the fall into sin, are also significant parts of our story, but this story is where we start to see that the LORD our God is one who is interested in us as people, not just a mass of humanity, but as individuals within that humanity.  God selects Abram to be the means by which His promise will come true.  God calls him by name, and changes his name, and gives him a promise that reaches out still today, to you and to me, and to all who put their faith in Jesus.

Our story begins with God's promise to Abram.  Each of us who put our faith in God and in Christ Jesus and His sacrifice are one of these offspring that God promised to Abram.  We may or may not be descended from the literal line of Abram, but we of the Christian faith are descendants of the faith of Abram, and it is that faith that God counts as righteousness.

Abram's story shows us that God takes a great deal of interest in us personally.  It also shows us that God's story involves His promise to us, and not our good in life or our inherent niceness or goodness, which makes us right in God's eyes.  God's promise came to Abram, and that same promise continues to come to us still today.  When we believe the LORD, God counts it to us as righteousness, because of Christ Jesus, God's one and only Son, who endured the cross and death to make us recipients of that promise.

Stories of Faith

In our current day and age, it seems that the idea of a person's story has become very important.  You hear about people talking about their journey of life, which is basically a way of saying that they have a story to tell about themselves.  These stories talk about the major events in their lives, as well as the events that have impacted them and made them to be the person that they are.

Stories define us.  Each of us has a unique story.  And yet, one of the things that unites us is when we have stories that have parts in common.  When two people get married, they start a story that inevitably must have chapters in common.  When a family is formed, their life together becomes the basis of their story.  Sure, the different members of the family may have different perspectives on the story, and different events will have differing impacts, but the root of the story is still the same.

As Christians, we also have a story to tell.  However, our story goes back all the way to the very beginning.  It began when there was nothing but God, and involves numerous people in a book we now know as the Bible.  As a family, children under our Father, we have these stories in common, and these stories define who we are.  They have a great deal of impact in our lives, and shape our understanding of our Father, and of how He has interacted with our family in the past, as well as His promises of what He is doing as the story of His people continues.

Over the next few weeks, I simply want to take a little time to relive some of these stories on this blog.  Some are stories that have a great deal of meaning to me.  Others may be stories that aren't all that well-known or remembered, and yet, are still included in our family stories.  And if my telling and reliving of these stories bring out thoughts or remembrances, feel free to share them as well.

Miracles and Believing

'He [Abraham] said to him [the dead rich man], "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead."'  Luke 16:31

"His [Jesus'] resurrection also was no demonstration for the world.  The empty grave as such convinced no one who did not believe in Him."  Herman Sasse

"If only I could see a miracle, then I would believe."  A few years back, I read a quotation along these lines in a book written by an atheist.  After basically trashing the Christian faith throughout his book, he finally comes to answer the "question" of what would cause him to believe.  His response is that, if he saw something that would be defined as a miracle, then he would believe.

In some ways, that's an understandable human response.  We want to see something great to prove something that we cannot see.  And yet, there is a very distinct line here that must be drawn.  That line is this: would you believe in something you saw that was unbelievable if you didn't believe that it was possible?

We humans have a way of trying to explain away things that don't make sense.  Try to convince someone that you saw a UFO, and you'll probably fight an uphill battle.  Who are the only ones who will believe you?  The ones who believe in UFOs.  For the person who doesn't believe in UFOs, you're probably not going to convince them, no matter how much evidence you may have.

That's why I find this quote of Jesus from the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16: 19-31) so interesting.  Basically, Jesus says that if you don't believe in what God has told us through the words of His book, then you won't believe a miracle, even one as pronounced as a dead man rising back to life.  Seeing is not necessarily believing.  In fact, it seems that believing that it can happen is necessary to seeing it for what it really is.

I see this in many of Jesus' miracles, as I think about it.  How often was Jesus' response to the person, "Your faith has made you well."  He didn't make them well, and then they believed, but rather, they believed that He could do it, and He responded to that faith.  Maybe that's something along the lines of what Jesus meant when He said that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains.

A New Arrival

Hi friends,

You may have noticed that I haven't been on here very much for the past week.  Don't worry, I haven't been slacking off (at least, not in the traditional sense).  Rather, a very important moment happened last week that has basically called for some new demands on my time.

That event would be the birth of my daughter.  Yes, late last week, my wife woke up one day feeling contractions.  They were coming about 10 minutes apart.  Me, being a typical guy, realized that I still had to do a little work, so I went to work around 8:00 that morning to write my sermon for Sunday.  After being up at work for about half an hour, Carrie called me to say that she really needed me at home.  So I finished up writing and headed home. 

Her contractions were about 2-4 minutes apart at that point.  We actually were able to stay at home until about noon (6 hours into labor), when Carrie felt that she couldn't handle a car ride if we waited much longer.  So we got to the hospital, went up to the delivery section, and (upon her initial exam) were told that she was dilated to 7 cm.  This meant that the baby was well on the way.

We only had to wait until 3:05 that afternoon for little baby girl to arrive.  A couple of days in the hospital, and baby and mommy are both fine.  We came home a couple of days ago, and have been getting used to the schedule required of a newborn. 

So I do hope that you will forgive me for not blogging very regularly over the past week.  But rest assured, I will be back with my usual content before you know it.