Grant, O most gracious God, that I may carry with me through this day’s life the remembrance of the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ my Lord.

For Thy fatherly love shown forth in Jesus Christ Thy well beloved Son:
For His readiness to suffer for our sakes:
For the redemptive passion that filled His heart:
I praise and bless Thy holy name.

For the power of His Cross in the history of the world since He came:
For all who have taken up their own crosses and have followed Him:
For the noble army of martyrs and for all who are willing to die that others may live:
For all suffering freely chosen for noble ends, for pain bravely endured, for temporal sorrows that have been used for the building up of eternal joys:
I praise and bless Thy holy name.

O Lord my God, who dwellest in pure and blessed serenity beyond the reach of mortal pain, yet lookest down in unspeakable love and tenderness upon the sorrows of earth, give me grace, I beseech Thee, to understand the meaning of such afflictions and disappointments as I myself am called upon to endure. Deliver me from all fretfulness. Let me be wise to draw from every dispensation of Tby providence the lesson Thou art minded to teach me. Give me a stout heart to bear my own burdens. Give me a willing heart to bear the burdens of others. Give me a believing heart to cast all burdens upon Thee.

Glory be to Thee, O Father, and to Tbee, O Christ, and to Thee, O Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my servant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian servant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

—Genesis 16:1-5 (TNIV)

Here we read a remarkable story. Abraham, the man of faith whom the writers of the NT hold up to us as an example of faith for all Christians, gets impatient with God for not fulfilling his promise. He appears to be doubting the efficacy of God’s promises and takes the matter into his own hands, so to speak. Ten years had passed since God promised Abraham his own offspring and who can blame him for being impatient? After all he wasn’t getting any younger and ten years is a long time. There have been instances in my own life when a day seems like a terribly long time, let alone ten years. And sadly, like so many other instances when we fail to trust God and take matters into our own hands, this story does not turn out well.

Yet it to the glory of God that despite Abraham’s faithlessness in this instance, God remained faithful. God fulfilled his promise to Abraham and Isaac was eventually born. The lesson here is twofold: (1) having faith doesn’t mean we never make mistakes or have our doubts and fears. When we consider our own faith, we must look at it holistically. That we sometimes fail to have faith in God and trust his good purposes for our lives, as well as his timing in working out his will for us, does not mean we are without faith; rather, it speaks to the sad state of the human condition—we are indeed broken people; and (2) despite our faithlessness, God remains faithful. God loves us despite our fears and doubts. God continues to call us into a relationship with him because he loves us and wants us to have real life with him. We are never truly lost unless we intentionally separate ourselves from God.

The next time you fail in your faith, remember this story of Abraham. The man whom God reckoned as righteous because he had faith in God’s promise to him missed the mark. But despite his failings, God picked him up and loved him. God’s promises were fulfilled in him and God never let him go. Take hope and take heart in that, especially during these cold, gray days of winter.