Dear Amy,

Are you in awe of those giants of the faith we know from the Bible⸺Noah, Abraham, Moses, David⸺and how they managed to play a part in the purposes of God beyond anything we see in our times?

Well, don’t be!

Besides being righteous and blameless and the reason humankind survived God’s purge of evil by the flood, Noah was just a man, and later got himself drunk and rather embarrassed himself.

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.

― Genesis 9:20-21

And besides being the one who in hope against all hope believed and so became the father of many nations, Abraham was previously a coward and a liar (Genesis 12:10-20) and a man who gave up waiting on the Lord (Genesis 16).

Moses too was a coward.

Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” But [Moses] said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”

― Exodus 4:11-13

And some time later, even having witnessed the Lord’s miraculous deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, Moses’ lack of faith caused him to make a heinous mistake at Meribah which was most severely punished by God.

And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”

― Numbers 20:12

Moses furthermore failed to take responsibility for this failure, and his later account to the Israelites was simply untrue.

But the LORD was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me.

― Deuteronomy 3:26

To complete our quartet of heroes we have David, that man after God’s own heart, that adulterer and murderer (2 Samuel 11).

What instead should we notice about these giants of the faith? They were all in fact frail and flawed human beings used by a mighty God for his Kingdom purposes. What was special about each of them was that God set his love upon them, and chose to work mightily through each one⸺just as he does for you, and just as he does for me.

The writer to the Hebrews makes exactly this point.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

― Hebrews 12:1

We are surrounded by these heroes. They are not above or beyond us and nor should we be in awe of them. We should rather read of their best qualities and eagerly desire those, being fully persuaded that the Lord can do the same through each of us.

Live with Noah’s blamelessness and Abraham’s faith and David’s desire for the Lord, Amy, and run with endurance, knowing that the Lord will bless you with what you desire (Psalm 37:4) and use you mightily for his Kingdom purposes! 🙏