February 2

”If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.”  (Isaiah 7:9)

Skiing can be a wonderful experience. Cross country skiing - to “go on a tour” as the Norwegians call it, can fill a person with joy and praise as one slowly travels over a mountain plateau. The beauty can be very intense and dazzling.

To ski and try and traverse uphill, on the other hand, with the wrong kind of ski wax allowing the skis to slide backward, is perhaps the most frustrating experience a person can have. Slippery! Ugh! You can’t get a proper foothold, and you persist trying to secure one of the skis to the ground, while you very carefully try to move the other ski a tiny step upwards. But, before that ski has found a secure foothold, the ski, which was recently somewhat safe, has slid down a bit, and so it goes, on and on.

In one Swedish translation today’s Bible passage reads: ‘If you are not firm in faith, you will not have any foothold’. Wobbling in faith is like skiing uphill in poor conditions. And I would like to add that to be firm in one’s faith is like cross-country skiing on a sunny day on a mountain top – it becomes a place of rest. Faith is to a great extent a decision. We choose to believe. We can choose to be firm in faith, to hold on to God’s faithfulness in spite of what happens to us. God will reward such faith.

Prayer
Lord I want to have faith in You today. I want to trust Your Word and rest in Your care.