How can you be sure of what you can't see?
In case you haven’t heard, has arrived. I’m loving revisiting the material I worked on almost a year ago, and I really think you will too. Today, we think about faith and hope and Hebrews 11:1, with a little bit of help from John Calvin.
As I write about faith and hope, I’ve been ‘studying on’ (which, where I’m from, means something like, walking around it, thinking about it all the time, trying it out, asking for enlightenment) Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen.” Today I read this really cool quote that sounded quite relevant to our contemporary struggle with faith. The language is a bit challenging, but stick with it and tell me if you see what he’s saying…
“The Spirit of God shows us hidden things, the knowledge of which cannot reach our senses…
We are told of the resurrection of the blessed, but meantime we are involved in corruption;
we are declared to be just, and sin dwells within us;
we hear that we are blessed, but meantime we are overwhelmed by untold miseries;
we are promised an abundance of good things, but we are often hungry and thirsty;
God proclaims that He will come to us immediately, but seems to be deaf to our cries.
What would happen to us if we did not rely on our hope, and if our minds did not emerge above the world out of the midst of darkness through the shining Word of God and by His Spirit?
Faith is rightly called the substance of things which are still the objects of hope and the evidence of things not seen.” John Calvin (Commentary on Hebrews)
