A Brave Quest
“If you catch this ball I will give you one hundred dollars” my husband shouted to our youngest son. He blasted the football as high as he could, straight up in the air and quickly moved his body backwards getting out of the way.
My son smiled, eyes wild, heart racing and feet scrambling as he ran full speed to the place where his dad had been standing. He hovered there, trying to predict the exact spot where the ball would drop.
It seemed impossible, which is exactly what my husband thought when he made the promise. Our son was only six years old at the time and the football that was now careening rapidly to the ground was almost as big as him.
He stumbled as the sun shined bright in his eyes, so focused on keeping his gaze upward that the ground beneath him caught him off guard. He held his arms straight up, fingers wide and stretched out, and that football landed perfectly in his tiny little hands safely in his grip.
My husband was shocked, shaking his head from side to side in disbelief. My son, on the other hand was ecstatic, screaming with infectious joy. It was just a matter of seconds before he demanded what he had been promised.
It was, after all, the promise that moved my son in such a way that the impossibility of the situation became less important than the fulfillment of his expectation.
Promise does that.
That day in the front yard laid out the simple trust between a father and his young son and sparked something fantastic, but how much more should our Heavenly Father’s unfailing promises ignite within us a brave quest through the obstacles of this life?
When we truly believe that the One who makes the promise has the power and willingness to fulfill it, we can see beyond the things that stand in our way and we can hold tightly to the sure fulfillment of that promise.
“Without the clear and certain promises of the Word of God, the believer has no basis for hope. ”
It is a gift to read about the men and women in the Bible who came before us, leaving with us their beautifully raw and real stories of faith.
We are encouraged by their lives, we can relate to their struggles and we can learn how they held tight to hope through their incredibly challenging journeys.
Reading through Genesis, we are inspired by a man named Abram (whose name was later changed to Abraham) who believed God and took hold of His promise.
If there was ever an impossible situation, it was Abraham’s circumstance. Among other things, he was old, his wife was barren and he knew little to nothing about the place where he was headed.
“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. ”
Few were the details and the unknowns were great, but the One who made the promise was certain and it moved him out and on towards a greater reality.
Obviously, the exact steps of my journey are not the same as Abraham, but I can relate to being riddled with unknowns. I have been in situations where I was unsure if I would get through the next minute and there are moments when I struggle to see just how my circumstance will work out for the good.
Each new day teaches me to keep my eyes on that greater reality, even when the ground beneath my feet catches me off guard and I stumble.
So I am deeply encouraged by Abraham’s story of faith and strengthened by his journey thousands of years after he took his last step on earth and was surely met with his first welcoming embrace in the Kingdom.
It is the same belief that God is able and willing to fulfill His promise that connects us and so the promise moves us both.
I have spent some time recently, contemplating some of the things that motivate me in my life. The sweet and faithful voice of my husband as we celebrate almost twenty years of marriage, the trusting admiration of my children as they look to me for guidance and the everyday ordinary encounters within my community all move me to be a better human.
There is only one thing that is absolutely sufficient to sustain me through the obstacles of life though and that is trusting in the promises of God which are developing in me an immovable faith.
And…God does that.