Holy Fools

If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. - Mark 9:23


When God spoke to Abram, he obeyed at once, departing for unknown land based only on a promise. Childless, he trusted God to make of him "a great nation" (Gen. 12:2).

God often does His work through "holy fools" - dreamers who strike out in ridiculous faith. Yet I tend to approach my decisions with calculation and restraint.

My church in Chicago once scheduled an all-night vigil of prayer during a major crisis. At length we discussed the particality of the event before finally putting it on the calender. The poorest members of the congregation, a group of senior citizens from a housing project, responded the most enthusiastically. I wondered how many of their prayer had gone unanswered over the years, yet they showed a childlike trust in the power of prayer. "How long do you want to stay - an hour ot two?" we asked, thinking of van shuttles. "Oh, we'll stay all night," they replied.

One woman in her 90s explained, "We can pray. We got time, and we got faith. Some of us don't sleep much anyway. We can pray all night if needs be." And so they did.

Meanwhile, a bunch of yuppies in downtown church learned an important lesson: Faith often appears where least expected and falters where it ought to thrive. - Philip Yancey


Faith looks across the storm - it does not doubt
Or stop to look at clouds and things without.
Faith does not question why when all His ways
Are hard to understand, but trusts and prays. - Anon

Prayer is the voice of faith.

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Genesis 12:1-5

Now Yahweh said to Abram, "Get out of your country, and from your relatives, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you, and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. In you will all of the families of the earth be blessed."

So Abram went, as Yahweh had spoken to him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran. Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother's son, all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls who they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan.

Into the land of Canaan they came.

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