Day in and day out there is much to take in.  There are beautiful days.  Days when faith comes in an easy swagger to an effortless walk, measured with an abundance of grace.  Those days are the kind of days you just want to press stop on and re-wind, over and over and over again.

We know there is no rewind.

There is no magical stop button for time.  Time keeps moving and with the good the bad comes.  It’s inevitable-the hard days.  The days you want to run far away from and wish away.  The days when faith feels more like an impossible test of everything you don’t feel capable of.  Tired moms who wished they had more energy yesterday.  Overworked dads who work just a bit  more in order to carve ten minutes of extra time out of what doesn’t exist in the day to be at home.  Parents grieving the loss of a little one.  Families dealing with that word-you know, the one that sometimes keeps you up at night in fear that it might happen to you or someone you love.  Cancer.  I know because I’ve been and am one of the tired moms.  I am also a wife to one of those incredible husbands who work and bear more responsibility than I think I can begin to understand.  Not unlike many of you, Cancer has visited my family also. It’s taken a brother, my mom, and most recently this past year, my dad.  It’s as evil as evil can be and yes, some nights it keeps me up at night.

Have FAITH that we are not alone.

Not for one second should you ever believe you are alone in the hills and valleys of hard.  Long before our time there lived a man who encountered Jesus.  He encountered Jesus out of the hard reality that someone valuable to him was deathly sick.  He approached Jesus humbly.  In that encounter, this man displayed the kind of faith that marveled even the heart of Jesus himself.  Yes-MARVELED.  Can you imagine Christ, God’s son, God himself, being MARVELED at someone as unworthy and ordinary as a man?  A man not unlike you or me?

And Jesus went with them.  When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.  Therefore I did not presume to come to you.  But, say the word, and let my servant be healed.  For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me:  and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another; ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”  When Jesus heard these things, he MARVELED at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.  And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.”  Luke 7:6-10 ESV

I want that kind of faith.  Faith that when looking down on the inevitable, I can still know my place, God’s place, and know that He is bigger than the big of hard.

I want the kind of faith that understands, in everything, I am unworthy.  To have a sense of unworthiness is the markings of humility.  Humility allows us to see that God alone holds the authority to make the impossible well again.  I want the kind of faith that believes God can do the impossible and amazing with simply speaking the word, but I also want the kind of humility that doesn’t presume anything of God.  God is big.  It stops me in my tracks that exercised, humble faith can marvel such a big, big God.  The reward of such faith?  Getting to watch God restore and make beauty out of seeming ashes.  Making all things well.  Perhaps not in the way I always envision, but always in God’s perfect way.   His compassion and mercy is limitless.  He bears us up, petitions us to ‘not fear’ and walks with and through us in the hard.  He is God and He is with us.  Do you believe that He is able?  Even if He seems far off from the hard you are standing under or in, do you believe that with just one word He can show up and do His thing? Do you believe enough to ask?  Are you humble enough to not presume anything of God yet have faith enough that God is enough?  Do you believe that He would even care for the things you care for?  Do you believe that if you are humble and if you are looking for Him, that God might smile to catch a  glimpse of a marveling kind of faith displayed within you?  Pretty amazing to think about isn’t it?

Even if…

You fill the blank in, and then take a listen to THIS.

Even if the cancer wins this side of heaven.  Even if the job falls through.  Even if you are tired and running on empty.  Even if…

Do you believe God is good, faithful, ever present, ever there, and just a hand grasp away-able?  Even if the hard is hard will you choose to respond with a marveling kind of faith that says to the hard you have a bigger God?  Yeah, I want that kind of faith.  I want the kind of faith that hops onto the shoulders of a very big God, a deeply loving father and lets Him carry me through it.