What kind of faith does the Lord want us to have?

Hebrews  chap 11 vs 1: Now faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen.

It was a Sunday morning, early in October. The weather was nice and sunny. One could smell the season starting to change. The trees were changing colors, this was a parallel to what was going on in all of the head lines. The man took his family to church, he had been a Christian much of his life, was always a good
provider, he worked hard and stayed true to God. He was used as an example to others as a prime example of a true man of God. The man did not like to be  used like this, he felt his faith was personal and his business. yet he knew deep down inside his faith had never been stretched.

The problem had been revealed to him, on Friday. He had went in a week before for his yearly check up  and his doctor found something. It seemed small, but yet it was there. Like all disasters that hit, it started out small and was slowly building to huge seemingly insurmountable problem. This was the first time that anyone in the medical field had used the word cancer with him personally. At first he refused to believe it, then like all things when it hits the light of day, it proceeds to move quickly. By Wednesday he was throwing up blood and  having endless bouts of diarrhea. He went to the emergency room and the doctor managed to give him some help and cut back on the symptoms of the disease. By Friday, his body was almost back to normal , yet the disease was still there. He sat in his car when no one was watching and prayed that God would give him the courage to face this and be able to come through this in victory. Yet fear nagged him, it was his constant companion.

He did his best to be strong in the face of such an evil adversary, He leaned heavily upon his wife, she was at his side as much as she could. The children had problems understanding why this would happen to their dad. When dad would go up for prayer the whole family went up also, You see their faith was joined as one to the Lord. Their faith kept their life together, they faced the problem head on and they trusted the Lord.

Their faith was simple, yet strong, much like Abraham and Job and Paul. Their faith unlike a lot of others did not need a big show or a miracle. The man knew he was facing death, so did his family. Yet they trusted the Lord and did not blame God for this. They simply lived their life and loved each other and knew that in the end they would go home and be together.

A short but simple story, without any real ending, It irritating when we cannot know the end. We want it all wrapped up nice and neat and done in thirty minutes. We want the Lord to answer and give us the answer we want. When we get the answer we do not want, then we whine and complain and at times question the Lord. In the  story of Job, he was a man who walked upright before the Lord, and when disaster befell him, he never once blamed God. Jobs so called friends tried to console him and finally told that there is sure something you have done to cause this. Jobs wife even told him to curse God and die. In the end Job stayed true to the course and his life was restored ten fold.

In life we have choices that we make, often they are easy , often they are hard. Joshua told the Israelites before they entered into the promise land, choose you this day whom you will serve. Set before you this day is  blessing or cursing. How you choose to face things that  are difficult is up to you. We can walk in faith that is steady or walk in faith like whining little baby that has to have their way. Again choose you this day whom you will serve.