Faith Effects

The Sunday school lesson was about faith. I fear that I made it too simple. It's easy to talk about faith but how do I get kids to live it out. How do I live by it? Of course I used Hebrews 11 to define it as hoping for what we do not see. But that's not exactly what it is, is it? Hope is important to the Christian faith. The greatest need of human beings is hope. Without it we abandon life. Hope is different than a dream or wish. It reminds me of something a friend told me when I packed up my stuff and moved 800 miles away from everything I knew and loved. She told me that we hope in what we know for certain. Our hope is a confidence that God is who he is and does what he says he will do.

Knowing this should cause us to live a little different. Knowing this should cause us to do incredible things for the Kingdom of God. The examples of the men and women listed in the "roll call of faith" are encouraging. Enoch is my favorite. There isn't much written about Enoch. He is one of those names you mention to a youth group and they stare at you like your speaking a foreign language. He's there because he pleased God. I'm not sure we even know why he pleased God but it had something to do with his faith.

This week is Bible school for the children. I'm sure that faith will be discussed. One of the lessons is about Esther. She had faith and a whole nation was saved. I don't think there is a lesson about Enoch. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there isn't. The Bible doesn't tell us how his faith effected others. It only tells us how it effected him - He walked with God and then God took him away.

All this made me do some thinking about my own faith. I'm not sure if my faith has influenced anyone or anything recently. Maybe it has and I just don't know it. I hope so.