October 27, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“But he said to them, ‘Do not detain me now that the Lord has granted success to my journey. Send me on my way so I may go to my master.’ Then they said, ‘Let’s call the young woman and ask her about it.’ So they called Rebekah and asked her, ‘Will you go with this man?‘

‘I will go,’ she said.” (Genesis 24.56-58)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Making the hard choices are easier when we align ourselves with God’s will. The question for each one of us is “How do I know what the will of God is for my life?” And that is a fair question. It is also a hard question simply because it cannot be answered without faith. I say that knowing the very definition and explanation of faith as the Apostle Paul laid it out the “Letter to the Hebrews,” (11.1), “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.” How many times I looked at that verse and thought that faith as “the evidence of things not seen” was referring to a belief in God. The evidence of a higher power and grand designer is visible in the world around us created in such a way that “an accident” is insufficient to the task of explaining its existence. The complicated intricacies interlaced between all the elements of creation (many we were not able to see or barely imagine until modern technology allowed us to do so) show and demonstrate that there is something more which we have not yet seen. That unseen is the very real presence in our eyes of God Himself. The disciples, as you remember, asked Jesus, “Show us the Father and then we will believe that You are the Son.” Jesus replied, “You have seen Me and that is enough.” Have you ever considered that Jesus was saying, “Put your faith in Me that I am the Son of God by the words and works which I have shown and given to you and believe there is a God.” In that, mighty ones of God, we hear the first statement of Paul’s teaching, “Faith is the essence of things hoped for….” Did the disciples really not believe in God before this? Were they truly doubting that Jesus was who He said He was? Or were they simply unable to “walk by faith and not by sight” in light of what Jesus was revealing to them would be the next steps in the faith journey of being Messiah, Lord and Savior who would lay down His life as an atonement for all? Perhaps we can all agree on that.

Yet, what I am addressing is the second part, “…the evidence of things not seen.” Is it really that we haven’t “seen” God that Paul is addressing? Could it be something more? Could it be that the not seen is what is yet to come but believing it is right, true and good? It isn’t solely the declaration of believing in God but in believing in ourselves in relationship to God that may be what Paul was teaching. That act of faith had not been “seen” before. That walk of faith had not been “taken” before. That declaration of faith had not been “heard” before. Well, not before until it was. Maybe it was silently considered and prayed over and allowed to exist internally. Yet when it crept to the very surface of becoming real as into the world, it was pushed back down by fear of the unknown and what was not yet seen. Yes, even in the story we continue to reflect upon as it concerns Rebekah’s call to become Isaac’s wife, we are given that glimpse of “faith as the evidence of what is not yet seen.” Rebekah, as well as Laban and Bethuel, saw the evidence of Abraham’s promise. They heard the testimony of Abraham’s servant concerning answered prayer. But we are also told of the hesitancy of Laban and Bethuel to let Rebekah actually take the journey even after they said she could and should go. They were drawing her back in for their own comfort as perhaps for her protection allowing her to decide to stay and not to go. That did not happen. Rebekah chose “faith as the essence of things hoped for (to be the wife of a true man of God) and the evidence of things not seen (Isaac, in this case, and the life being his wife would bring.) Mighty ones, are we as willing, in light of all the evidence, to make such a decision ourselves for our own lives? Do we instead pull back the reigns and head back to the corral and the paddock where life was “safe”? It is something to consider especially in these days and times when faith seems to be at a premium in the world and yet so desperately needed. Let us be as Rebekah was, “I will go.”

TODAYS’ PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness endeavor, but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.