Suggested Readings: Psalm 20, Exodus 40:1-15, Hebrews 10:19-25
This past year has tested and refined my faith on many levels: my husband went through a season of unemployment, we struggled through infertility and loss, and we experienced a death in our family. In those moments and months when God felt silent, I felt challenged to examine and declare what I truly believed. When my circumstances say otherwise, is God still faithful? Does God keep His promises? Does the power of Christ still exist in sea-parting, life-raising, illness-healing ways? Seasons of doubt and struggle often reveal where our faith is honestly seated and challenge us to recommit with renewed fervency to the hope we have through Jesus.
Isaiah 50:7 contends,
For the Lord God will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed.
This aptly connects to the “full assurance of faith” that today’s passage from Hebrews emphasizes. In the face of death itself, Christ found the Lord to be faithful, and we can have the same hope that our Father is for us and will help us. We are called to set our face like flint and resolve to remember why we have hope. The church calendar is vital because it calls us to remember and rehearse the story and faithfulness of God repeatedly, throughout the rhythm of our years.
Today’s excerpt from Hebrews offers us relevant life instruction: “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful…let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together…” We choose to continually draw near to God because we now have access to the presence of the living, loving, steadfast God. We can have hope in the midst of adversity, because He is faithful to His promises. And in all of this, we journey together in community, because encouragement and exhortation lead to the byproducts of love and good works. In this Lenten season, may we resolve to deeply experience the depth and beauty of our faith – that in the end, it’s not over until things are made whole, until justice is restored, until life and relationships flourish. Whether in God’s Kingdom on earth or in God’s Kingdom in heaven, our hope and faith will find fruition.
Anonymous