Kingdom Building
August 8, 2019
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. –Hebrews 11:1-3
Think about the last thing you did on faith. Some of us may readily identify a long list; others, I fear, will not think of anything. We live in a world where faith, hope, and love seem in short supply right now. Yet, we follow a God who created the world with a long-termed vision of what it might become, would become, and invited each of us to build it with God through faith in things hoped for powered by love.
We probably do not think about it but much of the ordinary things we do is by faith. I drove 3,000 miles on my genealogy tour this summer on faith that my car would run, that gas stations existed where I was going, that my credit care would be accepted. I would have been upset or stunned if any of that did not happen. If we can have such faith in the transitory ordinary things of life, what holds us back from resting our faith in God that God’s kingdom will come, and God’s will be done? We people of faith can be gloom and doomers running around like Chicken Little crying the sky is falling. Chicken Little assumes the sky is falling when an acorn falls on his head. He runs and gathers friends along the way who get just as hysterical as Chicken Little until they run into Foxey Loxey who guides them to his den and they are never seen again.
The sky is not falling, God is with us in everything we do, and God is greater than all the Foxey Loxeys of the world. We need to work at building our faith in God to also be our ordinary and come together as one to build God’s kingdom of love out.
Prayer: Lord, strengthen our drooping hands and our weak knees** toward our work in your kingdom coming. Amen.
*https://www.worldstory.net/en/stories/chicken_little.html
**Derived from Hebrews 12:12
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.