So why would a believing mother collapse in a roadside restroom at forty-five years old, potentially leaving three twenty-somethings, a husband, and a host of loved ones behind? Why are Christians being beheaded, and Christian babies being shot, and Christian homes being plundered by men filled with hatred, while the God whom they profess, and are literally dying for, allows it?

These are only two questions, from one person, from this morning. But the questions are as numerous as the days and the people who live them.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36)

This doxology paints the panorama of the life of the believer. God has a will, and he is working his will, as unreasonable or confusing as it sometimes may seem to us.

Walking by faith demands that we actually walk by faith. Yes, we can search for the reason behind God’s judgments and perhaps ease some of our confusion. But we can’t always. And God makes no apologies. He declares his paths to be his own, beyond our tracing. The most important question of the questions is the one we must ask of ourselves, “Will I be faithful when I am actually called to believe?”

Being sure of what we hope for, confident when we can not see the road ahead, is when the rubber of our faith actually meets the road God calls us to travel. Call it trial. Call it testing. Or just call it life. Faith is not faith until belief and trust consume all our senses and overtake whatever sense we are trying to make of a moment. Faith becomes believing when we trust God in the face of everything else.

Faith clings to covenant even when that covenant is the source of pain. Faith reaches for hope when nothing ahead looks good. Faith cries past the “why’s” and cries to the One who holds all the reasons and blessings and dreams.

It’s hard to look in the mirror and realize that God owes you nothing. But right behind that cold hard truth is the promise, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20)

“It is well.” That’s what faith is whispering. It is the Spirit’s resonating heart-hymn. “It is well.” Not because I can see it, and not because I can feel it. But because God is.

So as ones walking be faith, “we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.” (Hebrews 10:39)