All Other Ground is Sinking Sand

The one thing certain about life is that nothing is certain.

Michael Dupre had plans for the future. He lived in Dunedin, Florida with his wife and daughter. He was making plans to have some repairs done to his house and yard and eventually to have a swimming pool installed in the back yard. That night in November, 2013, he went to bed just like every other night.

But the next morning, the unexpected happened. His daughter came running to him, reporting to him that she'd heard a strange sound. At first, he was inclined to dismiss this--and then he saw it--saw the back porch of the house falling--falling into a hole in the ground. A sinkhole had opened up in yard. The Dupres immediately got out of the house, only to watch it be swallowed up a few minutes later as the hole continued grow. Dupre had known about the unstable ground in his area and had been working to get it fixed--but before he could, it had happened--and in a day, his entire house was engulfed by the massive sinkhole.

The one thing certain about life is that nothing is certain. Ground that once seemed solid begins to slide. People we thought we could trust turn on us. Pure springs turn foul. Institutions we trusted to protect us become our persecutors. Even if you've never had your entire house swallowed up by a sinkhole, you've probably had a day that felt that way--a moment when something you trusted and depended on suddenly and completely collapses. If you haven't had it happen yet, it will come, for this is a universal experience. The one thing certain about life is that nothing is certain.

Because of this, some people go through life with a cynical attitude, trying their best not to put their trust in anything or anyone. Others try to shut out this reality, by living in a world of self-deception and fantasy. Others give in to anxiety and live their lives in fear. Most just try to put on a brave face and move on.

But there is one other option. That option is to look for the one thing that is certain, something which will hold you when everything else collapses. We read of one man in the Bible who experienced much uncertainty and turmoil in his life, a man who had no real home or foundation, but he had something else, which held him steady no matter what happened. And when our life begins to collapse, we can have support in the same thing he had--that man was Abraham and the thing he had was faith.

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:8-10)

Here we see Abraham as the pioneer of the Hebrew Nation singled out, for the one thing that always seems to be associated with Abraham in the thought of the New Testament: faith. Faith was something so fundamental to Abraham that he is taken throughout the New Testament as the symbol of all people who have faith. It was Abraham's faith which kept his settled and grounded no matter what happened. He was called to go out into the wilderness, into a place he did not know--he was promised a land which he never possessed, a promise without substance--but he had faith and faith is the substance of things hoped for and the proof of things unseen.

But what exactly was Abraham's faith like? Faith is a very broad term. Exactly what made up this faith of Abraham, this face that formed the foundation of his life? And if we are to have the same faith as Abraham, exactly what kind of faith are we to have? What is this faith which can serve as the foundation of our lives, even when everything seems to be sinking? I think in the story of Abraham here in Hebrews 11 we can see four aspects of this faith.

First of all, we must have a FAITH THAT FORSAKES. We must forsake the known past, and our desire to control, in order to receive the unknown future we cannot control--for it here in the unknown, unseen, uncontrollable, loose-cannon of reality that the hand of God works to build a city--to bring to fruition His plans for His people.

We see how Abraham is our example in this--for he gave up his past when he was called to leave his home land either in Ur or Haran (there is debate among scholars as to which land he lived in when he received the call.) Abraham is seen throughout the Bible as a wealthy man, and it is probable that he already had his riches before he followed God's call.

Abraham was probably living out the American Dream--a self-made, self-fulfilled rich man, with everything he need, a comfortable life, familiar settings, and a safe future. His life was well ordered. It was safe. It was comfortable. And while there's nothing wrong with that, Abraham could never have founded the Jewish nation while sitting in a lawn chair of his mansion in Haran, sipping pink lemonade and watching the livestock market in the newspaper. And so, God called him. And when God called, he obeyed.

He obeyed, and went out to found a new country--to set up shop in a land that had been promised to him and to all his descendants. Great, right? Well, as one man said, until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will never know the fear of being utterly lost at sea. That's probably the way Abraham felt. He was a pilgrim without a home in the land he was supposed to own. He never actually owned any of that land, except some property he bought to start a family cemetery.

By following God, Abraham had to give up his desire to control his life. He was stuck wandering around in the wilderness, living in a tent, following God. Not that he never tried to control what was going on--a quick reading of the book of Genesis will tell you that. However, overall, Abraham lived his life on this principle--forsaking the desire to control his own life. And if we are to have the faith of Abraham, it must be a faith that forsakes, a faith that lets go of our own attempts at security and casts us adrift on the plans of God.

I know this seems paradoxical. I said that faith is something which gives us security, even when it seems like our life is collapsing. And now I say that the first thing faith does it makes us let go of our security. But the point is that the security faith calls us to forsake is a false, deadly security.

We all want security. We all want to be safe. This is a basic need of mankind. And so we build for ourselves all kinds of security, a security based on wealth or position or family or friends or a job or--well, pretty much anything. And of course, all these things are good in their proper place. But none of them can provide us with security. In the time of testing, they will betray us. The house built on sand will always fall on the day of storm.

That is why God calls us to have a faith that forsakes these things. Because if we build on a faulty foundation, we are always doomed for failure. It is only in forsaking our dependence on these things and looking to God and his promises that we can hope for success.

Being a pilgrim is no joke. It is no light thing to leave what you know and go out into what you don't know--unable to hold unto the past, nor control the future--having nothing firm to hold unto but the promise of God. It seems hard--but if you're going to have only one thing to hold unto, the promise of God is a good thing to have. That is what kept Abraham going through all the trials. He knew that everything he gave up was worth it. He forfeited the past to gain the future. He forsook His own will to get God's. He left man's city, so he could find God's city. For a pilgrim who knows nothing but change and insecurity, what could be better than a city with foundations, built and designed by God Himself?

It is no coincidence that the author of Hebrews makes a point of speaking of God's plan as a city which has foundations. Faith calls us to forsake our own security, not in order to leave us helpless and vulnerable, but to give us a truth security within God's plan. God may not promise us the security we would like--God never promises that bad things will never happen to us. Plenty of bad things happened to Abraham. He experienced famine, family problems, and wars. But what God has promised us is that He has a plan for us. When we are following God, we know the things that happen to us are not by accident, for God always works for a reason. God is always working to build something out of those who have faith in him. That was His promise to Abraham--and that is His promise for us. That no matter what happens, God is building something out of our lives if we will have the faith to follow Him.

Jim Elliot, missionary martyr of Ecuador, said: "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose." Like Jim Elliot and like Abraham we have to let go--we have to have the faith to forsake the known past, to forsake our desire to control our lives, in order to receive God's will in the unknown future that we cannot control. But though this shows us part of the picture of the faith we must have, it is not complete.

We also must have a FAITH THAT FEARS NOT. We must not be afraid of the impossibility of God's promise, for God always keeps His promises in a way far greater than we can imagine.

Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. (Hebrews 11:11-12)

This is the heart of the matter. The reason that Abraham set out from his homeland was because he had a promise; a promise that he would be the father of a new nation which would possess the land in which he traveled. And, beyond this, that his descendants would be used by God to bring blessing on all the world. It was a promise that his life would have significance--that he would not simply live and die and be forgotten and the world continue on as if he had never been.

This was the promise God had given him and it was the only reason he left his home and became a pilgrim in the promised land. It would have been a foolish move, it weren't for the hope he had in this promise. But there was a problem. In order to be the father of a great nation, he had to be a father--and he wasn't. He had no children. His wife had never been able to have children and eventually she became too old to have children anyway. It seems like a cruel joke to tell a childless man that he will be the father of a great nation. But that was God's promise.

And this is the central fact about Abraham's life. He believed the promise. He took God at His word, trusting that if God said something was going to happen, then it was going to happen, even if it seemed impossible--because with God, nothing is impossible. Because God created and rules the world, no situation ever comes up which he can not handle. And because God is a God of Truth, He never makes a promise that He does not intend to carry out.

That was what Abraham knew, and that was why he wasn't afraid, even though the promise seemed so impossible. He knew that God could do it--and that if God had said it, He would do it. For Abraham to doubt the promise would have been to doubt either God's honesty or his power.

Though it seems Sarah and Abraham had a little trouble at first, at last their faith latched onto God's promise--and because they pressed on without fear, they received the fruit of their fearless faith. A child. Just one. A little boy named Isaac. His parents loved him, but Abraham surely couldn't help thinking he was hardly a multitude (though some days in a crowded tent, he might have seemed like it.) However, as we know from reading the end of the story, out of that one child came a great people that could not be numbered, the people that guarded the bloodline of the Messiah, and a people that even today are recognized and play an important part in world politics. You see, not only does God always keep His promises, but usually He does it in a way that is far greater than you can imagine.

God made a promise to Abraham--and God has made some promises to us, promises that may seem as a cruel and impossible as the promise of many descendants seemed to a childless man. Was Sarah first heard God's promise, she laughed. If we always responded so honestly, people might mistake the Bible for a joke book.

That is why we must have the faith of Abraham, a faith that fears not the difficulties of the promises. We can have the same faith Abraham had because we have the same God Abraham had. The value of faith is not in the one who has faith, but the one they have faith in. We have the same God and so we can have the same confidence in His promises that Abraham had. No matter how difficult, absurd, or impossible the promise of God may seem, we know that God has the power to keep His promises and so will always keep His promises. If you have the title deed to a piece of land, then that land belongs to you whether or not you've ever set foot on it. And if we have faith in God's promises, that is the same as having thing promised, for faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.

This was the faith of Abraham, a faith that feared not. Charles Wesley wrote: “Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees/And looks to that alone/Laughs at impossibilities/And cries 'It shall be done.'” This is the kind of faith which can give stability even when everything around us seems to be collapsing. But it is not enough to have a faith that forsakes and fears not.

We must also have a FAITH THAT FOLLOWS. We must follow when the goal is unclear because God is trustworthy and so we know that if we do not give in and turn back we will find God's best.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

Abraham and his family followed God--even though they didn't receive the promises themselves. Abraham never saw his countless posterity; he never owned the land that was promised to Him. Because the goal was so distant, it would have been easy for him to reject God's leading and try do something else. Who wants to trust their whole future to God, when His working is so hard to follow?

Yet Abraham did. He believed that God was trustworthy. He saw the promises of God--as if from a great distance--and even there he thought they were worth following after, even though it cost him everything. What did he care about all the trials of his life as a pilgrim? He knew that God was working--he knew that he was seeking a country--he was looking for God's best for his life.

Of course, he could have given up. He could have said: "One year in Canaan is enough for me." He didn't have to stay for the full time God had in mind. But here we find an interesting aspect to the story of Abraham. Even though Abraham didn't always do the wisest thing when faced with difficult situations, the one thing he never did--the one thing he never even seemed to considering doing--was packing up his stuff and heading home. He certainly wasn't always happy with the way God was working in his life, but he never that, as consequence, he was going to give up following God. If had been thinking about his old country, he surely could have returned there.

But he didn't, because he desired something better. He knew that God would keep His promises. God had prepared something for His people. God wasn't going to be ashamed of being called the God of Abraham or Isaac or Jacob--God wasn't going to be ashamed, because He was prepared to keep His promises to them. God is never ashamed of His people if they follow Him--nor are God's people ever ashamed of their God--because God always keeps His promises. God prepared for Abraham a city--even while Abraham was still wandering around in the wilderness, God had a settled goal, an established promise waiting for him.

It's easy to start things, but it's much harder to see them through to the end. The one necessary thing to completing a project is faith--faith that it can be completed. One can stay on the journey mile after mile if one has faith in the goal. One may start out in an endeavor for many reasons. But only faith can keep one to the end. The treasure seeker can brave any difficult march or treacherous passage, so long as he believes he will find the treasure at the end. That is the kind of faith Abraham had and which we must have--a faith that follows because it believes that God will bring His work to completion in time.

Until we learn to follow God no matter what, we can never really hope to find God's best. We must follow on, even when we cannot see the goal for sure, because God is faithful to keep his promises, and so we not that if we follow we will find God's best. However, the faith we need to have must be more than a following faith--or a faith that forsakes, or even a faith that fears not.

We also must have A FAITH THAT FREES. We must have a faith that can help us be free even of the closest tie, because we know that God will take care of whatever we give to Him and fulfill His plan in the end. We must have a faith that trusts all things to God--even the things that matter most to us.

By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. (Hebrews 11:17-19)

The greatest test of Abraham's face was when he was called to give up his son Isaac--to give him up to God. Isaac was very dear to Abraham who had waited so long for Sarah to have a child. But even more than just being a dearly beloved son, Isaac was a symbol of God's promises. Abraham hadn't seen most of God's promises fulfilled--all he really had was Isaac. Isaac was the child through whom the great nation was to come. It seemed all so right and natural--Abraham needed to keep Isaac, whatever else he gave up. And yet God called him to offer up his only son. Even though it seemed to mean the end of everything Abraham had hoped for and believed in, he had to give up Isaac. God knew as long as there was one thing--even something as precious and important as Isaac--that Abraham would not give up to God, then he would never be free. Every thing that is put above God will bring bondage to the soul. Only the soul that love God only above everything, can truly be free to do God's will and find His best.

And so Abraham gave up his son--he didn't understand why, but he gave him up, trusting his future to God. He knew that if worse came to worse that God could raise Isaac up from the dead. He knew that God always kept His promises, so he could trust that God would work out even this apparently hopeless situation. He didn't falter, but offered up his son, because he trusted God. And after all, why should he worry about the fact that Isaac's death would seem to make God's promise impossible? Isaac's birth had been impossible too, but God had managed to work through that.

Abraham believed that whatever happened, God would fulfill His plan. And that is exactly what happened. Abraham received his son back from the dead "in a figure" or in a symbolic way. Isaac was offered, and yet he lived. And through Him God did fulfill all His promises to Abraham. Because Abraham believed, God kept control of the situation and worked it out according to His will.

Man is made to have faith; it's a natural part of us. So if we do not put our full faith and trust in God, we will put it in something else. If we do not trust God to meet all our needs, then we will put our trust in something else to meet our needs. Something in our life--some person, some possession, some talent or ability we possess--this will become the thing we trust. For Abraham, it would have been very easy for Isaac to take this position. After all, it was through Isaac that all God's promises would be fulfilled. But whatever we put our faith in becomes the thing that controls us. People who trust in money are ruled by money. People who put their faith in some person are slaves to that person. People who put their faith in politics are blinded by politics. And in the end, they are bound for tragedy, because they are putting faith in something that can never live up to their trust. Indeed, not only does this false faith destroy the person who has it, more often then not it destroys the thing in which they place their faith. If Abraham had put his faith in Isaac, rather than God, it would have led to disaster both for Abraham--and for Isaac.

And that is why God calls us to give up, to set us free from any false object of faith that would enslave us. That is why we must have the faith of Abraham, a faith which is able to see beyond any thing to the promise of God, a faith which will not allow anything else to take the place of God or His promises, a faith which frees us from anything that would hold us back from following God.

Everyone has those days when everything just seems to be falling apart on you. People let you down, things don't work, and everything just seems to be going wrong. It's at time like that we realize that we can't really trust anything, and we often wonder--what is going to happen to us? We usually live as if we could control everything, even the future. The truth of the matter is we can't even control the beating of our own heart, let alone the future. And it is times like that when we realize we must be a pilgrim. We must live as citizens of a nation of faith--of faith in God. We must have the faith to forsake our own little plans and our desire to control the future, and so find God's great, uncontrollable will for our future. We must have the faith not to fear when faced with impossible promises, because God always keeps his promises in a far greater way than we can imagine. We must have a faith that follows on, even when the goal is unclear, because we know that God is trustworthy and that if we do not give in and turn back, then we will find God's best for us. We must have a faith that frees us from the closest tie, because we know that God will take care of whatever we give to Him and fulfill His plan in the end. If we trust in God, and live with this kind of faith, we don't have to worry about the future. God takes care of that. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted Him for righteousness, for those who are just shall live by faith.