Welcome to Nancy Guthrie’s guided journal “Hoping for Something Better,” which she based on her book of the same title (Tyndale 2007).
New journal entries will appear in your profile Monday-Saturday for 6 weeks. If you missed any so far, stay subscribed to this feed and you can begin when it starts over. Be sure to start your own journal within your Beliefnet profile or in a notebook to respond to Nancy’s prompts.
Day 19
There is something better than depending on what we can see. It is being certain of what we can’t see.
Read Hebrews 11:1-7.
Typically when we say we “hope” for something, what we’re really saying is that we’re not sure it is going to happen, but we want it to. We have no sense of confidence that it will come about. Of course, what we’re really talking about is wishful thinking.
But that is not biblical hope. There is nothing uncertain about biblical hope. It speaks of something that is certain but not yet realized. We haven’t experienced it yet, but there is no question that it will happen.
Faith is being convinced that the promises of God we have placed our hopes in are true. It is stepping out to follow a God we have never seen with our eyes, whose voice we have never heard with our ears, trusting a reality that the collective voice of the world says does not exist and does not matter. Faith is believing that there is something more durable, more dependable, and more delightful than anything in this world. Faith is believing that something more can be found only in God—and then living like we believe.
What are some ways people today would define faith?
Based on Hebrews 11:1, how would you define faith (in your own words)?
–Nancy Guthrie