The Hebrews 11 definition of faith is pretty straight forward. The Christian faith means confidently hope in the promises of God. Not pretend to “hope” but actually pessimistically doubt, we are to confidently hope. There ought to be a certain bounce in our step because our confidence in God’s promises is so great. We know He will fulfill His commitments to us.

Our confidence in His promises come from our assurance in what we do not see. This is such a hard thing because we humans don’t see a whole lot. For starters, we don’t even get to see God Himself. We are taking it on faith that He even exists. It’s not a baseless faith, but it is faith without sight. And we also don’t get to see how God is working for us behind the scenes and out of our sight. This blindness can often be a harder leap of faith then the leap in believing in God at all. Not knowing how God is going to work all things together for our good and yet remaining confident in our hope in Him? That’s not an easy ask. But it’s not one the Lord asks of us ignorantly either. While God doesn’t know what ignorance is like, He knows us. He created us and He perfectly comprehends how we function and how challenging it is for us to walk faithfully when we cannot see what the full picture of what is happening or how it will end.

The mystery of faith and the assurance about what we don’t see has been compared to quilt-making. On the underside of the quilt, all you can see is the knots, the apparently hapless crisscrossing of different threads and colors. It looks like a disaster, a mess. But on the right side of the quilt, we see a beautifully embroidered pattern, one that could only be wrought by a master seamstress. We live on the underside of the quilt. But we like to think that we are living on the right side of the quilt, so when things go wrong, we panic and think that the design of our lives has gone terribly wrong and that everything is ruined. But there is a master Designer knitting and knotting us into a beautiful work that only He can see. We have to trust that the knots and messes of our lives are being worked out into beauty as our God has promised. We are to have assurance that He sees what we do not and confident hope in the promises He has made to us.

When I read this it blessed me and I wanted to share it with someone today. I trust there is someone who needed this today. What a mighty God we serve.

Have a wonderful day in The Lord!

Today’s Reading is Hebrews 11