By faith they say, but does it work? It’s the only thing that does!

As it says in Psalm 37:5-6, let God vindicate you as bright as the noonday sun; and yet we doubt.  We must have faith, and what is faith but to commit our way to the Lord?  Psalm 37:5-6, then, is both the promise and its fulfilment.

If only we can travel by faith as the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 did, we will soon find that eventually God does vindicate us.  But “soon” feels like an eternity.  The reality, however, is eternity is a very long time!  “Soon” is like a nanosecond in comparison.

The paradox, of course, is that we will not be vindicated if we doubt and slide back and get tossed around on the seas.  Oh dear.  I know what that’s about!

We must keep travelling forward in faith, that at the right time, and in the right way, God will vindicate us, and when he does, we will most certainly know it was from God just by the very manner and circumstances about which it happens.

We may not like faith if we are yet to be vindicated, and indeed, faith comes as an affront.  What do you mean we have to surrender and submit?  The truth is we all need to do this if we truly wish to work — which is faithful waiting — for the vindication our hearts desire (Psalm 37:4 — another verse with a promise and an outcome).

We must keep striving forward, despite the arrangement of obstacles that tempt us into all manner of doubting and resenting and rescinding, because in striding forward, we have the only path to vindication, even though by faith our efforts can seem a futile exercise.

We stand at a precipice. In the valley of decision. We must choose doubt or faith. One feels comfortable in the present time and the other feels decidedly foolish, but with time and the passage of God’s all-provident flow, faith always sends us in the direction of reward, yet doubting sends us barrelling toward despair.

The thing with faith is this.  We cannot hedge our bets.  We must commit one way or the other.  We go our way and it feels good, but our vindication does not come this way.  We go God’s way even though it seems nonsensical, but by faith we journey steadily toward the divinely-appointed-and-anointed destination.

We cannot go both ways — or dither between both ways.  This way does not work.

No matter how far you feel you are from vindication, please know that God will vindicate you as bright as the noonday sun at his appointed time and moment.  And when this happens, as it will be for us all, we will hardly believe how real God is in procuring a solution that blows us away by how ingenious it was.

But only by faith.

God gives us a choice.  Take a chance on him or settle things our own way.  Whilst his way seems ludicrous, as life works out it’s the only way that works.

We must give our vindication to God in faith and leave it there if we hope to get it.  But if we take our vindication and cling to it for dear life, we will never receive it!

Photo by Corinne Kutz on Unsplash