Without Wavering: Resilient Faith Built on the Promises of GodSample

By Faith: God’s Strength in Me

If your life looks anything like mine, then every day there are moments we come up against, each one with the potential to wound us, to steal our joy. We live in a fallen world marred by sin. What hope can we cling to? We need something—Someone—to look to, Someone to help pull us through. Being a Jesus follower invites us to something greater, something more than the brokenness of our world. In Christ we find belonging and purpose, for today and forever. In Christ we receive the resilience to show up and step forward.

Yesterday, we considered what faith is, using Hebrews 11:1-3 as our guide. Today, we’ll pick up where we left off in Hebrews 11. After defining faith, verses 4-38 give us example after example of people in the Old Testament who—“by faith”—walked in obedience to God and lived out their God-given assignments as His children. Their stories show they were not always without fear or doubt but that they had trust in their God.

The examples we see in verses 4-12—Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah—take us back to the earliest chapters of Genesis. From the moment Adam and Eve were banished from the garden and the presence of God, His relationship with His children became one of faith rather than sight. By faith . . . By faith . . . By faith. This phrase is the heartbeat of Hebrews 11 and the key to how each of these individuals lived in obedience to God, even as they faced hardships like ridicule, isolation, barrenness, and other all-too-familiar trials.

Our friends in Hebrews 11 were motivated by faith because of who they knew God to be and the power of His strength at work in them. This is the key to faith in action, to a life where our weakness does not keep us from showing up, but is made perfect in God’s strength.

I’ve spent nights collecting tears of emotional and spiritual exhaustion on my pillow, hiding away from the world as if my weaknesses and weary soul were things to be hidden. But it’s in moments when obstacles do come—when the winds take us down, when the waves crash over us—that I’m learning to rely on God, His power, and His strength. While He may not immediately and miraculously change my difficult circumstances, I do know He will give me the power to face whatever is in front of me at the moment. I’ve seen Him do so time and again in my life and in the pages of His Word.

Go to Hebrews 11:4-16 to read examples of great faith throughout Scripture.