A Daring Faith

As a man who preached once or twice every Sunday for over 43 years, I can count a lot of sermons.  But, the truth is that I can remember only a few sermons.  One of those sermons remembered was preached at the Blakely United Methodist Church back in the days of doing summer youth ministry.  The pastor for whom I worked was Clark Pafford and before he gave me his pulpit on Sunday morning, he would sit in the empty church on Saturday night to hear my sermon for the first time.  The sermon I preached back then had as its text James 1:6-8 which reads in part, "But, ask in faith....for the doubter, being double minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord."    

Many of our prayers are perfunctory and empty of conviction.  We ask, but we do not really believe God is going to respond.  The Apostle Paul speaks of the faith empty of conviction in his letter to the Roman Christians as he writes about Abraham with the words, "being fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised."  (Romans 4:21)  With a hundred years behind him and ninety years behind his wife Sarah, it would have been an easy thing for Abraham to have said, "Sure, Lord" instead of giving one more try to what seemed like an exercise in futility.  A friend described Abraham's situation with the words,    "He looked at his body, and it was dead.  He looked at Sarah, and her body needed ironing.  But in faith he crawled in bed with her, made love with Sarah, and Isaac was conceived."    

There are things in our life which seemed equally as impossible.  Broken bodies, broken spirits, and broken hearts weigh heavy upon so many of us who are seeking the wholeness of God in our lives. Many times we pray prayers that allow us to live with the impossible parts of our life simply because we pray half-heartedly, not really believing God is able to do what He has said He would do.  Dare we take God at His Word as we follow the example of Abraham in doing all we can do while trusting God for everything else?