Who do you relate to in the scriptures?
Are you a Job figure? Has the Lord allowed nearly everything to be taken from you? Your wealth, your family, friends, home? Your health? Are you wondering if there is anything left to take?
Are you a Peter? A follower with faith that some moments is way up there, you can say with certainty who Christ is, and then moments later be faltering and not wanting to drown in the waves.
Are you a Martha? Wanting to have the Savior with you, but finding that in trying to ready everything you fail to see Him right there wanting you to sit with Him and listen?
Are you a Sarah? Believing that the Lord is there, but laughing when it is suggested that He will work a miracle in you?
Are you a Paul? Someone who has scoffed at the notion of a Savior, ridiculed those who believe?
Are you the woman at the well? Ashamed of the circumstances you are living in because they go against what you know to be true?
Are you the woman suffering for years with a health issue that has exhausted your resources, and your spirit?
Are you the man with the child who is full of a bad spirit that is tearing up your child?
The scriptures are full of people. People who have experienced all of these things. Things that can draw us away from Him. Things that turn our heads and hearts.
But there is a common theme with all of them, in the wide variety of circumstances they were in.
Could they choose to believe?
Could they choose to change?
Could they choose to have faith?
Could they choose to listen?
Job had everything taken from him: family, friends, home, wealth, health. But he would not choose to walk away from God.
Peter, in the darkest hour, in a raging storm, would call out and reach toward the Savior.
Martha would accept rebuke and listen.
Sarah would laugh and then accept the miracle she had waited many years for.
Paul would allow his heart to be changed and embrace new belief, new hope and a life of teaching.
The woman at the well would admit her circumstances to the Lord and beg for the living water that she so desperately wanted.
The woman with the issue of blood would, even in her exhaustion and weakened state, reach out her hand to touch the garment of the Lord.
The man would recognize his lack of enough faith, to ask for the faith he needed to believe that the Savior could cast out the devil and heal his broken child.
I love these people!
Their stories speak to my heart.
I feel their brokenness, I feel their speck of faith.
I compare myself to them at different times, in different situations.
The gift of these stories is precious to me, because I know I'm not alone in the times I'm struggling to believe, and in the times that my heart wants to sing out from the roof top!
I hope, if you are struggling in your faith, that you will find someone in the scriptures to relate to. That you will stand with them in your struggle and hold on, hold out, and wait upon the Lord.
I hope that if you are bursting at the seams in your faith, that you will boldly announce, "This is Christ, the Son of the Living God." And be not ashamed. That you will point out and call out the miracles you see and the truths that are all around us.
I hope that the scriptures will help you in wherever your walk in faith may be now and in the days you live out. They help me, they guide me, they give me strength.
God lives! He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to you and to me. Be not afraid. Only believe.
