By John Blase
In what seems like another lifetime now, our children were small, as in preschool and kindergarten age small. During those years, a craze was afoot—scrapbooking—and my wife was all in. In some sense it was an analog version of Instagram. You took pictures constantly, trying to capture those special moments. Then you’d get the film developed and arrange the pictures in a scrapbook, complete with handwritten text, tagging who was in the photo and what was going on. Sound familiar? There was special paper, special pens, special stickers, special adhesive tape. It was crazy. But it was also special. Here’s why.
If we had ever experienced a house fire while our kids were small, do you know what they would have grabbed on their way to our designated safe place outside? You guessed it—those scrapbooks. They were, and still are, one of their most treasured possessions. There are probably a handful of reasons why that is, but I believe the primary one to be this: those scrapbooks tell them who they are and where they come from—and, most importantly, who loves them more than anything. Those photos and text awe them, they reveal the amazing experiences they had in the past, and that gives our kids confidence to keep moving into their unknown futures.
Habakkuk could pray, “LORD, I stand in awe of your deeds” (3:2), because he had heard the report of all the amazing things God had done in the past. And the recounting of those miracles and wonders gave him confidence to continue on, regardless of what the future held. It’s in those moments that Habakkuk’s confidence in God was bolstered by the words and pictures, if you will, of God’s faithfulness in the past.
That’s a key reason why consistently reading and studying God’s Word is so important to our lives. In a very real sense, the Bible is a scrapbook that reveals to us the ways of God. Yes, you’re right: the Bible often feels like another lifetime now (probably because it was), but here’s the deal: the same God Habakkuk prayed to is the same God we pray to today. In fact, He’s the very same God who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Those scriptural snapshots tell us who we are and where we come from—and, most importantly, about the God who loves us with a never-ending love. They provide for us a confidence, also known as faith, to carry on into today and tomorrow.
Written by John D. Blase
3 thoughts on "Confidence in God"
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Psalms 89:7 says:
One thing that came to mind when I was reading this was that Christians often individualize themselves from the community of God. And we feel like God does not personally show His love for us with any stories or events. However this is not true.
If we are to look back into The old testament, or even the New Testament and early church, what do we see? Do we see stories about different people in different times Who are different from us. Or do we see the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, who we are a part of. The old and New Testament are our Scrapbook of God interacting with his people. And a very real sense these stories are how God interact with us and if we were to replace the characters with ourselves we could see just how God interacts with us.
However, we also in this time, don’t practice reflection anymore. We don’t “scrapbook” how God effects our lives and often we have nothing that we look back to or remember about Hod’s interactions with us. The Jewish people had the Pentateuch to see God’s interaction, the early church had the Old Testament and also their church history, and we today have all of that AND what we write down today of God’s character.
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