Jun. 7, 2026 - Faith like Abraham

Change is the one constant we can always count on in life. Yet, when we stand at the crossroads of major decisions—not knowing what lies around the bend—we often find ourselves paralyzed by uncertainty. Should we move forward? What will the consequences be? What if we make the wrong choice?

These moments of transition reveal something profound about the nature of faith itself.

Consider the courage it takes to make a life-altering decision with incomplete information. Imagine choosing a college you've never visited, packing three suitcases, and flying across the country to a small town in Iowa, sight unseen. No campus tour, no test visit, just pictures and a gut feeling that this was the right path.

That kind of decision requires something beyond logic or calculation. It requires faith—a deep knowing that transcends the limitations of what we can verify or control.

And isn't this precisely what God calls us to? Not a faith built on certainty and complete knowledge, but a faith that trusts in promises we cannot yet see fulfilled.

When we think about examples of faith, Abraham seems both perfect and puzzling. Yes, he's called the father of many nations—a title that encompasses Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But let's be honest about Abraham's situation.

He had no guidebook. No scripture to reference. No community of believers to encourage him. No benchmarks to measure his progress. Just a promise from God that seemed impossible: he would become the father of many nations when he was nearly 100 years old and had no children.

Think about that for a moment. Abraham didn't have what we have. He didn't have the Bible to study, no stories of faith to inspire him, no examples to follow. He simply heard from God and chose to believe.

And he wasn't perfect in his faith journey either. He tried to rush God's promise along, taking matters into his own hands in ways that created complications. Yet despite his imperfections, Abraham is remembered as a giant of faith.

Why? Because he made the journey from knowing about God in his head to trusting God in his heart.

Here's where things get interesting for us today. Unlike Abraham, we do have guides. We have scripture, traditions, teachings, and examples. We have the "rules," as it were.

But there's a danger in having rules: we can become so focused on following them that we miss the relationship they're meant to foster.

The Apostle Paul understood this deeply. Before his dramatic conversion, he was someone who knew the rules inside and out. He followed them meticulously. But his rule-following without faith led him to hurt people rather than love them. His works were technically correct but spiritually dead.

Paul's insight was revolutionary: where there are rules, rules will be broken. You don't need faith to follow rules—you just need a copy of the rules and the discipline to reference them. But that's not the abundant life God promises.

We've often heard that "faith without works is dead," and that's true. But Paul was coming from the opposite problem: works without faith are equally dead.

So what does matter? Not how hard we believe or what percentage of the rules we get right. What matters is that we believe in the first place—that we know God is God, that God's love dwells in our hearts, and that this love is meant for us.

The Gospel of John makes this explicit: "These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." The operative phrase is "that you may believe." Everything else flows from that foundational trust.

When we truly let God into our hearts, something transformative happens. We put our hope and trust in promises we can't necessarily verify in advance. But we trust them anyway because of what we've seen, what we've read, and what we've experienced of God's faithfulness.

This isn't blind faith. It's informed trust based on a growing relationship with a God who has proven reliable time and again.

Here's the good news: when we enter into this space of genuine faith—when we move from head knowledge to heart trust—we put our faith where it truly belongs. And in that process, we are made whole in ways we couldn't imagine otherwise.

Our discipleship becomes a journey of restoration with the Creator of all that was, is, and is to come. We begin to know from the very center of our being that we belong to God. This isn't something we can measure on a chart or verify with a checklist. But it's something we all desperately need and instinctively strive for once we begin the journey.

This understanding becomes especially important when we face those inevitable transitions in life. We may not know what's coming around the bend, but God certainly does. And that makes all the difference.

Living out faith in daily life means connecting with the Holy Spirit right where we are, naming the blessings we receive, and operating from that blessed space. It means trusting that even in uncertainty, God is guiding us.

It means believing that the best is yet to come, even when the present feels unstable.

One of the most beautiful aspects of faith is how it connects us across time and space. When we gather at the communion table, we're not just participating in a ritual—we're joining with believers across centuries and continents. That table wasn't just for those present when Jesus instituted the supper. It was for them, for everyone who has been part of the body of Christ since then, for us today, and for all who will come after us.

We share one meal together, connected across time. We were meant to share in this meal long before we ever met. And every time we partake, we connect with the entire body of Christ, even when we're not physically present with one another.

Faith like Abraham's—faith that puts trust where trust is due—is still possible today. It's faith that acknowledges we don't have all the answers but knows the One who does. It's faith that steps forward into transitions without knowing every detail of what lies ahead.

This is the faith that transforms us, that makes us whole, that connects us to God and to each other in profound ways.

As you face your own transitions, your own moments of uncertainty, remember: you don't need to have everything figured out. You just need to know that God is God, that God's love is real, and that God's promises are trustworthy.

The best truly is yet to come.