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News and Ideas from around the Anglican World |
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March 2006
Faith: Confidence builder for a journey to the unknown
Bp Andrew Atagotaaluk
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance and he went out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 8:11
One of the wonderful and amazing gifts that God has given us is faith for the unknown journeys in our lives. Whether our journey has taken us through difficult, dark, doubtful, harmful, misgiving or unprofitable experiences, the ability to have faith has always allowed people to experience victories, success, promotions and fulfilled dreams. Even the start of a new year is like beginning an unknown journey. You really don’t know what that year is going to be like for you, what challenges you will have to face or what success you will have.
Abraham was an ordinary man just as you and I are yet he is one of the people in the Bible that is known as a role model for living by faith. Not just a faith to make it by, or to live successfully by faith through the unknown, but faith in God, faith in a living God who knows the unknown.
Every teaching in the Bible is accepted by faith, and kept alive by faith. What the Bible teaches about salvation is kept and the reality of it is experienced by faith so is redemption, forgiveness and so on.
The last sentence of our text states that “Abraham…He went out, not knowing where he was going.” This can easily be taken to mean, he wandered around in the land aimlessly. Living by faith in God is not walking around aimlessly. To me it indicates that Abraham came to know God well by being willing to have faith in Him. There was complete trust born and confidence built. Abraham was able to journey with God through the unknown. Though he did not know where he was going, he had faith to trust that God knew.
As a boy growing up the only life I knew was to survive by hunting and trapping. Living in igloos or sod huts in winter and tents in summer. At that time I did not know that there were other races of people in the world. Our way of life was lived largely by faith because when one only lives from the land there are so many uncertainties. You got by and survived by having faith. It was like being trained from the start how to live by faith. At that time, I did not know that one day I would be called of God to journey with him on a trail unknown to me. I did not know that I would become one of the leaders in the church of God. My journey from a primitive way of life to where I am today was made possible and achieved only by faith in God. The God who gave Himself for me that I might share the richness of His blessings that flow through the gift of faith. He allows us to exercise this gift so that we can reach the destination that He Himself has set for us.
The Bible promises that a person who is willing to have faith can perform many wonderful and awesome things. It also cautions us to be mindful that faith must always be exercised from the heart and not for fulfilling ones own personal gain. As Paul states in 1Cor. 13:2 “And though I have the gift of prophesy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
I believe that as Christians today we come across many uncertainties in many areas of our journey. Only by the faith that has trust, obedience, confidence and peace in the one who called us can we journey through the unknown also with confidence.
If you are willing to accept the gift of faith and chose to walk in it anything and everything can be possible. Even if you are on an unknown trail of life God is in the midst of it journeying along with us so that we reach the destination that He has set for us.
The Rt. Rev’d Andrew Atagotaaluk is the bishop of the the largest Anglican diocese in the world - the Diocese of the Arctic.
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