“What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen” Hebrews 11:1.

When in seminary I was given the opportunity to be the director of an American Baptist home mission project. This site was located in a small town about twenty-five miles northwest of Kansas City, Kansas. Why did they need a mission station? Because in the summer months this town of twenty-five people would swell to over two hundred migrant families that came to the river bottoms to pick radishes, cabbage and other produce. Subsequently, their needs included health care, a safe place for the children to go and of course there was no longer a church in the valley.

When I took my wife to see the abandoned church building we were to use she couldn’t believe her eyes. The doors were off their hinges. Various creatures were using the sanctuary for a hideout and other things  (you can guess what). Plaster was falling off the walls, there was no glass in the windows and man did it smell. I could see by the look in her eyes she was disappointed. This was our first church and I had brought her to a place of dirt, loss and obvious poverty.

Disappointments in life can make us feel like, “I guess that’s all there is. I’ll have to settle for less.” But, faith energizes us to look past our disappointments and to see God’s promises. Faith breaks us out of our routine; faith pushes us to make a difference for God.

Dear God I have some disappointments in my life that are a challenge right now. So please dear Savior break me out of my routine and send me out into the world with the confidence and knowledge that You have already taken care of the problem and even now are watching over my future. Through Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.