Observation: Isaac is near the land God has promised to Abraham, his father, when a famine hits. God tells him not to change course and go to Egypt (where there would be food). God tells Isaac to hang in there, and stay in the promised land as an alien. Through his belief and persistence, God will create a great nation, which will bless all nations.
Application: It's easy to believe God's promises when things do, in fact, seem to be heading in that direction anyway. It's easy to trust God will take care of you when you have half a dozen job interviews lined up. It's easy to trust God loves you when you are feeling slightly more able to act lovable. It's easy to trust that God is in charge of this world when the world is sort of "behaving" like a world of which God would already want to be ruler.
But that's not faith. That's intuition: logic. Observing what's going on and drawing a natural conclusion based on what you're seeing. Faith, on the other hand, is seeing things going in the opposite direction, and trusting that in spite of that, God's promises still hold true. That God is taking care of you when you have no idea how that will actually pan out. That God loves you when you are not acting especially lovable. That from the cross of Christ, God is in fact reconciling all things to God's self and making all things new, when it seems we're headed for doom and destruction.
Belief is a gift from God. It's based on what we don't see, rather than what we do. It doesn't let us off the hook from trying to make our lives and our world more like what we know God would want. But it affirms that when it seems to be going the other way, God has not left our side.
Prayer: Lord, help me believe, even when my senses tell me to despair. Amen.
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