What Persuades You?

I began in these days to start grasping at a notion that my husband would later call my elevated view of life--a thing that gave meaning sometime to the most random of things.  It sprang from a seed in scripture about a common image of faith:  the humble tent, the shelter of the sojourner.

April 11, 2005
The sermon at church yesterday considered Hebrews 11, and I went on to study the passage on my own--particularly from this prophetic study focus.  The first verse of the chapter is often considered the Bible's defining verse for the idea of faith: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But I find myself considering one of the examples given further down in the chapter, looking at both what is not seen and what is.

Hbr 11:8	By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
Hbr 11:9	By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as [in] a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
Hbr 11:10	For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker [is] God.

  Abraham lived in a tent, it says...all his life, essentially all of three generations of his family.  And Sarah--she bore a child from a dead womb.  It is easy to imagine believing for the birth of a nation from the one child of a dead womb when you are looking backward down a lens from the future, but what about when you are looking outward through it at places not yet explored? 

What amazing faith it becomes, to believe in Solomon's city when you stand as your tent flaps in the wind...for the rest of your lifetime.  Everything they clung to (aside from the promised child) remained in the realm of the "promised but not yet realized" until the day they died!

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of [them], and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Hbr 11 continues. I begin to see a new dimension to all this. 
Prophets in practice, if you will. They become so much larger I see.  Ones whose very lives are prophetic. 
For we know that if our earthly house of [this] tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Cor. 5:1)  The tent in this verse stands as a symbol for the human body, making the patriarchs' tent-life--and even Paul's profession being one related to tent-making--these become things prophetic woven into the fabric of their common, everyday living!

Later,  this idea of meaning-rich details in lives both Biblical and current blossomed larger, and sometimes even now a heightened clarity descends that imbues the seeming randomness of duller moments with an uncommon significance.  In those times, it feels like God is making His own version of poetry, and often out of the least noticeable elements of a life.  These become breath-taking metaphors when they assume their God-given transcendence--when they receive the spotlight that can only be directed by the Spirit of God. 

Hopefully, this expansion of vision will become apparent in the entries of the days to come.