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1 Corinthians 15:19 NLT

'And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.'

In life we quickly establish there are no guarantees. Katey and I married in full expectation of producing children and living long into our dotage together. Both assumptions proved false and we had to discover the skills required to navigate disappointment and anger, while deepening our friendship with God. In the event it boiled down to trusting God, even when we desperately didn’t want to, or more honestly, feel able to.

The way of faith is to walk in the darkness in pursuit of the light. It is to know God while darkness obscures all aspects of God’s reality. Learning how to live comfortably and with confidence in the darkness proved the greatest obstacle to our growth in faith.

Here Paul declares that if all we have believed proves to be no more than an exercise of divine deceit, then we are, of course, to be pitied above all. For we have traded our lives for a lie. The temptation is to seek to keep a foot in both camps. Generate financial provision for now and the future, live life to the full and raise walls in an attempt to restrain the rising tide of evil that might impact our lives, while equally adopting a Christian way of life to demonstrate our faithfulness to God and God’s word.

Sadly, when we hedge our bets in this way we rob ourselves of ever catching a veiled glimpse of God within the darkness, for we have drawn a line in the sand through our actions that we cannot cross. If God is real, and knowable, then we have to stake everything on the reality of the incarnate, risen Christ.

QUESTION: How willing are you to stake your life and well-being on the truth of God’s revelation?

PRAYER: Lord, help me to live in such a way that it is clear I am a follower of Christ.