Living by Faith: The Creation and Our Faith (continued)

In Psalm 37:3-7, “Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord, wait patiently for him.” Creation is designed to inspire this kind of faith in our souls. It’s designed to teach us to believe in him who can do anything he wills to do. 

Of all the examples of faith we will ponder in chapter 11, this is the only one that looks backwards. What I mean is that every other instance of faith is of people who had to look into the future and believe that God was going to bring about what he had promised. But with creation we look at what we see, think back in time, and believe that what we see was created by God out of nothing. We look upon this living metaphor and learn deep in our hearts that if he can do something so powerful as this, then he can surely fulfill all of his purposes and promises in heaven, on earth, in our lives. 

And as I mentioned in an earlier post in this series, our beliefs about the specifics of creation come not from our imaginations but from the Word of God. For example, we get the idea that the universe came into existence by the word of God’s power from the Word of God. So, when we wake up and walk outside and see what we see, we believe that it was created by the speech of God because God has told us so in his Word. And when we look upon creation and believe the Word of God, we grow in faith. We grow in trust. We grow in childlike wonder. 

Now, to some extent, God has given us enough common sense to look at the created order and figure out that some massively powerful and intelligent being made all that we see. In fact, Romans 1 tells us that creation itself is enough to hold us accountable before God and it condemn us as fools if we fail to see the creation and believe in him. But faith is more than common sense. Faith is more than a series of intellectual processes. Faith trusts in God by clinging to his words, and so when our Father says that he created everything out of nothing by simply speaking it into existence, we believe him, and this is faith. 

So, I want to end this post by challenging you to set aside sometime this week, leave your electronics and other distractions behind, and go somewhere where you can behold the works of God in creation. Once there, remember what you’ve learned from Hebrews 11 and ask God to use his handiwork to build your faith. Ask him to work in your mind and heart as you gaze upon the things he’s made and meditate upon his power and faithfulness. Let creation do what it was designed to do in your life today!