Common man Christianity

I am not much on living in the past. As a matter of fact, I am a proponent of the school of thought that says the past is the past and we cannot change it, therefore live for today. Or another one I like is, “Yesterday is history, and tomorrow is a mystery, live for today”. I love these saying because they bring me hope. They bring me hope because I know that Jesus has washed away my mistakes, and gives me the strength to live another day in hope that I can live the righteous life He calls me to.

However, the past also provides us a road map of faith. Many times in the Bible God would tell folks, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”. Why would He say that? I can tell you why, what God was saying was, “Look at what I did in their lives, I worked miracles in the lives of these men, and I can work miracles in your life too.” It brings me so much comfort to look at the doubt of Abraham when God told him he would have a child in old age. His wife laughed and Abraham doubted. God came through. It also brings me hope when I see Abraham’s faith as he walks that promised son to the top of a mountain to sacrifice him in total commitment to God, and God came through again. It brings me hope when I read that Paul had a “Thorn in his flesh, a messenger from Satan” that God would not remove from him. Why do these things bring me hope? Because I realize that I am not alone. The greatest men in the Bible had failures and God used them anyhow.

And then there is my own history, every day that I walk through life with Jesus I am making a history that I can draw from for years to come. When I pray for one of my children when they are sick I can draw from a strong history of when God healed before through my prayers. When I pray for God to help me financially I can remember the time when two thousand dollars just showed up in my Bible. When I am in doubt about what God would have me do in a situation, I can remember when He made it clear what I was supposed to do through the word of another. My history, and the history of others, strengthens my faith.

This is one of the reasons why reading the Bible and journaling are so important to our Christian walk. These are records of the history of great men of God, and a journal is a record of our own history. When we feel our faith getting faint, these are places we can run to in order to remember those times when God came through, and therefore create great patience while we wait for Him to come through again.