Who are the real heroes?
Phil Wickham’s Hymn of Heaven contains the line, “stand beside the heroes of the faith.” Usually that makes me think of the list of notables in Hebrews 11, those who paved the way of faith for us by being utterly everyday humans who were granted unique opportunity to hold on to God and His promises. Generally, this included some kind of sacrifice or lifestyle change, something that felt like a loss to the human involved but resulted in a big payoff for someone…often US! We have this idea that they were somehow super-human; mostly they were schmoes like the rest of us. They were, however, willing to be the weak ones who walked with The Strong One.
I think the real heroes of the faith are those who cry out to God in desperate situations…and everyday ones: the moms who hold on to Jesus and cry out to him for help when the baby won’t stop crying…or the child is dying, the dads who bless their wives and children in Jesus’ Name and go off to fight a war they didn’t start but that needs to be finished. They are the single men and women who take refuge in God as their defense when the temptation to enjoy what is not theirs threatens their sense of self, and they are the wounded ones who let go of bitterness against their bullies and let God defend them. Men who ask for God’s presence to guide them as they lead their families, women who look to the Holy Spirit for how to stretch the budget, children who care more what Jesus did for them than what their classmates think of them, teens who pursue integrity before popularity because they seek Jesus. These are the ones who receive the promise: those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. (Psalm 34:10b)
These are the ones I look forward to standing beside when we breathe the air of heaven!
Psalm 34 is full of God’s big promises to answer, deliver, save, encamp around, hear, protect and redeem. Those are His verbs. His is the heavy lifting. We humans are called to a different set of action words: taste and see, take refuge, fear, seek call, cry out. These are hard for us to do! They involve acknowledging our need, our weakness, our desperate condition and reaching for the One who is always ready to help.
Most of us will not have the chance to be the first to walk with God into world-changing covenants, but we all have the option to depend on ourselves and our resources OR to cry out to God for His. Seeking “His kingdom and His righteousness,” Jesus promises, “all these things will be yours as well.”
Maybe Lent will be a time of practicing our set of Psalm 34 verbs…embracing our weakness and letting His mighty power show off… just a little.
Hoping His power shines through my weakness as I…
Follow Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
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