The Certainty of Faith

I'm extremely grateful for my job. I get to work in an environment where I come across all types of people from all different walks of life. And because of that, I get to hear and share some pretty amazing stories. This afternoon was one of those moments...

An elderly lady came into the store and we began talking about old books. And something caught both our eyes. Someone had dropped of this incredible church hymnal from....Wait for this....

1888!

This was such an amazing thing to hold with such rich history. Yeah it wasn't in great shape but then again what could you expect from something over 130 years old! And it really got the conversation going between the lady and me.

We started talking about faith and how we both came to know Jesus.

Her story was something quite unique and without writing an entire post about it, basically she was raised Catholic, spent 40 years in the church and then she started asking questions. The big one being, why didn't priests and leaders in her church encourage people to not only read books about their faith but also the actual bible.

One thing lead to another and she left the Catholic church and joined our Protestant denomination. She shared with me that after years of not knowing God, she finally found 'certainty' in the pages of Scripture and from the Holy Spirit.

She then said something that just shook me to my core but also gave me incredible hope for the future. I'll paraphrase:

"When you are in the world, you will live one day and will be cloud 9. Then the next day, you feel defeated. It's a roller coaster for most people. Up's and downs constantly! But then you give your life to Christ. And the certainty of your faith grows and grows. There's not more swinging of emotion. You are always happy because you know how this all turns out....."

Wow.

Let me unpack that because once it really hit me, well I've been thinking about it all day and night....And am even writing a blog post about it :)

When I was in the world, I would be loving life. Day in and day out, seemed to be filled with adventure and happiness. But then I'd hit a funk. And sometimes it took me weeks to snap out of it. Now I'm not saying, once you follow Jesus your life is filled with success and happiness 24-7, far from it.

But that sense of certainty, just cannot be matched.

You have ups and downs, but emotionally and spiritually, you always feel safe. You know the end result of all this. You know which team wins and the promise of eternity with Christ just makes everything all right.

I always think of Hebrews 11:1 when people ask me about faith, and here's what the bible says....

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

This is the certainty. The hope in Jesus.

I don't know about you, but I'm sick of the ups and downs. I'm sick of the wars and rumors of wars. I'm sick of the violence, hatred, evil, murders, viciousness of this earth. My great hope is heavenwards.

I pray it is yours too!

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