OUR DAILY BREAD : HOLY FOOLS

[cimi]

June 1
Monday


HOLY FOOLS

READ:
GENESIS 12:1-3
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If you can believe, all
things are possible to
him who believes
__Mark 9:23
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When God spoke to Abram, he obeyed at once, departing for an unknown land based only on a promise. Childless, he trusted God to make of him "a great nation" (Gen. 12:2).

God often does His work through "holy fools" __dreamers who strike out in ridiculous faith. yet I tend to approach my decisions with calculation and restraint.

My church in Chicago once scheduled an all-night vigil of prayer during a major crisis. At length we discussed the practicality of the event before finally putting it on the calendar. The poorest members of the congregation, a group of senior citizens from a housing project, responded the most enthusiastically. I wondered how many of their prayers had gone unanswered over the years, yet they showed a childlike trust in the power of prayer. "How long do you want to stay--an hour or two?" we asked, thinking of van shuttles. "Oh, we'll stay all night, "they replied.

One woman in her 90s explained, "We can pray. We got time, and we got faith. Some of us don't sleep much anyway. We can pray all night if needs be." And so they did.

Meanwhile, a bunch of yuppies in a downtown church learned an important lesson: Faith often appears where least expected and falters where it
ought to thrive. __Philip Yancey
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``````````Faith looks across the storm--it does not doubt````````````
````````````Or stop to look at clouds and things without.`````````````
```````````Faith does not question why when all His ways````````````
```````Are hard to understand, but trusts and prays. __Anon`````````
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Prayer is the voice of faith.

**************Today's Bible Reading __ Genesis 12:1-5************

1 Now the LORD had said
to Abram: "Get out of your
country, from you family
and from your father's
house, to a land that I will
show you.

2 "I will make you a great
nation; I will bless you and
make your name great; and
you shall be a blessing. 3 I
will bless those who bless
you, and I will curse him
who curses you; and in you
all the families of the earth
shall be blessed."

4 So Abram departed as
the LORD had spoken to
him, and Lot went with
him. And Abram was
seventy-five years old when
he departed from Haran.

5 Then Abram took Sarai
his wife and Lot his
brother's son, and all their
possessions that they had
gathered, and the people
whom they had acquired in
Haran, and they departed to
go to the land of Canaan.
So they came to the land of
Canaan.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>INSIGHT<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Genesis 12 provides for us a true watershed event in the story of
the Bible. Consider all that was hanging in the balance, humanly
speaking the establishment of a chosen people, the painting of a
portrait of practical faith, and even the human line through which
the Redeemer would come into the world. It is not overstating
things to say that, in a sense, eternity hung in the balance of one
man's decision about whether or not to be obedient to the Lord. yet,
Abram did not know all of those ramifications--he only knew that
God had spoken, and he must obey. __Bill Crowder