If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all.   (Isaiah 7:9)

Hurricane Harvey dumped 50” of rain on Houston.  Once I could get out of my neighborhood, I spent a few days at the shelters.  I then spent a few days helping some friends demo their homes.

Imagine losing everything you owned. Your vehicles, carpets, furniture, clothes, tools, family heirlooms, and dishes—ruined.  Imagine taking the contents of your home to the curb to be picked up as garbage.

In one particular house where I was helping a friend to clean out and clean up, one of the helpers sought out the owner. He started the camera on his phone and said, “Jeb, I want you to speak to your friends who aren’t here.  Tell them how you’re doing?”

My first instinct was to stop this exercise.  It seemed like pulling a scab off a wound before it had even formed.

Before I, or anyone else, could interrupt this interview, Jeb said, “I’ve something to say.  All we finally have is our faith, our family, and our friends. I want everyone to know that my faith is strong, my family is safe, and my friends are many.  I’m sorry it took this storm to learn this, but maybe that’s the way it had to be.”

He was crying.  So was everyone else. He and his wife stood in an embrace in the midst of the rubble.  They were standing firm in faith, firm with love, firm with hope, firm in their friendships.

Isaiah in today’s scripture encourages us to stand firm in our faith, because he knows that without it we won’t be able to stand at all.  When we aren’t standing strong in our faith, the lightest winds of trouble and the smallest rains of loss can topple and sink us.  But when we are standing strong, we will be given the strength to carry on and to prevail, for no hurricanes, storms, or anything else, can bring us down when we trust that the Lord is at our side.

Reflection Questions:

1. Are you right now standing strong in your own faith? If so, what is keeping your faith strong?  If not, is there something you could do that would help you to do so?

2. What have been the times in your life when you weren’t standing strong in your faith? Did anything happen to make you waver?  If so, what?

3. After one of those times when you wondered if God was with you, did you ever look back and see that you had never been alone?  If so, what did you learn?