The right thing to do, brothers and sisters, is to believe God before he pays up anything, because just as he cannot possibly lie, so he cannot possibly deceive. For he is God. That is how our ancestors believed him. That is how Abraham believed him. There’s a faith for you that really deserves to be admired and made widely known. Abraham had received nothing from God, and he believed God’s promise. We do not yet believe him, though we have already received so much.

—Augustine, Sermon 113a.10

I love Augustine because he has such keen insight to matters of life and faith. Here he takes us to task for having God deliver the goods to us in Christ and yet we still refuse to believe God’s promises to us. Not so with Abraham.

Each of us is confronted with this stark choice in life: Either God is true to his word or he is not. Until we are ready to acknowledge that we are finite, fallen, and mortal whereas God is Infinite, Holy, and Immortal, we will always be tempted to put ourselves over him and his word. But when we acknowledge that God is Creator and we are his creatures, we are ready to read his word and believe his promises. It is the testimony of countless Christians that when we get to that point, God will not disappoint. Think on these things as you examine yourself during the Lenten season.