My great grandfather on my dad's mom's side, Harvey Randall, was a Methodist minister. (I have posted a picture of him and my great grandmother, Lauretta Randall, on their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1942.)
Stuck inside my great grandfather's Bible, in the Hebrews 11 faith section, was a printed flyer (or sheet) by Ralph Beebe. At the top of the sheet it says:
FEAR KNOCKED AT THE DOOR. FAITH ANSWERED. NO ONE WAS THERE.
Mr. Beebe then wrote, "I read these words over the fireplace of the Hind's Head Hotel in Bray-on-Thames, not far from London, a year ago. They were ascribed to no author, and I had never met them before, but they have been with me since."
These words really spoke to me. If you have followed this blog any length of time you know that faith is a strong theme of it. The Bible says that we walk by faith and not by sight, that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that faith released many people's desperately needed miracles and unbelief quenched the work of God as well. I believe faith is, ultimately, at its core, the commitment we make in to the conviction we have of God's goodness, love, trustworthiness, power, and Word, and I believe that there is tremendous power in faith—it is like the water that brings out the life in the seed of God's Word and promises.
When fear knocks, we answer with faith. We bring God's Word and promises and character to bear on the situation, and rest our emotions and thoughts and expectations and hopes on what He says and brings, and not on what we see before us. We dare to believe and rest our trust in the One who calls things that are not as if they were, and who, with a word, speaks in to existence that which was not. He's the One who will never leave me. He's the One who died that I might have an intimate relationship with me. He's the One in me who is greater than the one pacing the world. He's the One who is faithful to complete the good work He has begun in me.
To borrow the cry of the Zimbabwe believers, "That's my God!" (see the November 19, 2009 post That's My God!).
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