Invigorating faith boosters

In time of recession, governments inject stimulus packages into the economy to get the process of supply and demand going. Winning a gold medal at the Olympics may inject new enthusiasm for that sport among the youth.

I worked at a clinic for addictions for more than 20 years. In the detox unit, worndown patients received medicine to alleviate scary withdrawal symptoms and to build up the ravaged nervous system. This treatment injected new zest for life into them, enabling them to take part in the rehabilitation program within days.

Most people don’t like needles pushed into their flesh. However, the annual flu shot has accustomed many to this sharp end of the medical profession. Diabetics, who use insulin injections, just have to live with it, grateful there is an answer to their problem.

Those who occasionally watch programs about veterinarians would have noticed how a cow that cannot get up and stand recovers within an hour or two with the right injection or intravenous drip.

In his wisdom and mercy, God knows when we need a good type of injection. Abraham got to the point where he started laughing when God made another promise about a son who had not arrived after 25 years of waiting. “Oh, that Ishmael may live before you,” Abraham mumbled, wishing God would accept Ishmael as the promised heir (Gen. 17:1718).

God gave Abraham’s faith another injection by changing his name from Abram to Abraham (Father of many nations), and Sarai’s name to Sarah. God made his promise painfully real by instituting the circumcision of Abraham, all his male servants and all his male descendants. Then the promise of a son born from Abraham and Sarah was repeated.

Eventually, the main faith injection came: “And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him” (Gen. 21).

God’s faithfulness reached its pinnacle when the promised Messiah was born from the descendants of Abraham. Moses, David and the prophets spoke of him, and Israel kept hoping despite the long wait.

Unfortunately, Israel focused on the prophecies about a royal Messiah (pointing to his second coming), and misread the prophecies about his humiliation (with his first coming).

However, God did reveal it to some: Joseph and Mary, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, the shepherds of Bethlehem, the wise men from the east, the disciples, many of those he healed, thousands converted after the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the churches planted in the past 20 centuries. Immanuel, God with us, became reality.

Jacob Van Zyl of Lethbridge is a retired counsellor and the author of several faith-based books.