Steadfast Faith
Faith is a specialized kind of trust. If there is something you can rely upon with all your heart, and confidently so, that is experiencing faith. One of the prayers of our tradition uses a modifier with it, making it steadfast faith. The word “steadfast” means resolutely firm and unwavering. I would sure want that, wouldn’t you? I would like to experience a faith that is resolutely unwavering: steadfast faith. Most of us need a renewal of faith routinely. We need assurance that will move us to embrace and hold fast to the unchangeable truth of God’s Word, Jesus Christ.
I use these phrases purposely since they show up in the Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent:
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son.
This is a prayer that admits, we sometimes go astray, and owns also that we can be brought again into fellowship with Christ. Faith is a gift from God. Abram and Sarai received this gift when they were called to leave their people and security and go to a place that God would show them. Paul challenged us to all strive for the faith they showed, indicating that we all can receive this gift of faith. It is such a challenge because it calls us to be assured without the proof and evidence of what can come from holding fast to the truth of the Word, Jesus Christ. What trust! Only by the divine gift of God can we experience it.
In Abram’s case, God says, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.” (Gen 12:1-2) When the couple believed God without knowing what was next, they ventured forth. Sometime later, they received new names, entering further into covenant with Yahweh, such as Abraham and Sarah. Abram means exalted ancestor, and Abraham means ancestor of a multitude. The name Sarah carries a meaning of having been blessed.
Perhaps God is telling you to put one foot in front of another, and to trust that down the road you will be shown the way that you should go. You probably won’t undergo a name change, but the phrase “child of steadfast faith” will surely fit you. The covenant promise, Paul asserts, “depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace”. (Romans 4:16) Grace, by definition, is a gift not earned. Shall we stretch out our hands and open our hearts to God? Let us trust God for the gift and walk as people of steadfast faith.