Messianic teacher Kevin Williams offers a compelling reason to trust in God alone.

First, I must confess that I believed in God at a very young age. Only the Almighty knows who the two men were who visited my house those many years ago. I came home from the park one summer’s eve to find them talking with my mother about a personal savior who lived, died, and rose again to removed sins and let mankind enter into a personal and eternal relationship with Him.

Adults seem to have a difficult time admitting that they do things wrong—that they sin against their Creator. But an 8 or 9 year-old boy knows he does things wrong. He knows because he plots wrong things, because he willingly takes that “triple-dare,” because he often gets caught doing wrong, and because he is often told by his parents, teachers, and authority figures that his behavior is wrong. To a child, being wrong is a part of life.

To my young, unclogged mind, the idea of a God who would eliminate all the wrong things—all my sins—was very appealing. So I accepted what they had to say at face value. I didn’t understand all the implications to what I was agreeing to, nor would I for many years to come. But I knew deep down inside that it was the right thing to do and I have never regretted that night’s decision.

Many years have passed since that small boy, and I have a pre-school son of my own. Believe it or not, from time to time, I have to tell him in no uncertain terms that he does things that are wrong. One day, I hope and pray that he will place his trust in God’s Messiah as I have.

But I am no longer a boy. I no longer think like a lad (though I’m told I act like one on occasion). Many things through the years have challenged me and my faith. Sometimes, blind faith is enough. Other times, faith is the way-station that keeps us safe until introspection and revelation bring us to understanding.

So why do I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? I could discuss many things: miracles witnessed, prayers answered, and unexplained healings. Not to mention the marvelous work called the Bible and the fact that it was written over a 4,000 year period by people from all variety of backgrounds and cultural experiences. Yet despite this, it has a continuity that mathematically defies the odds. All of those things are important to me, but the overriding incentive is the same reason I had when I was little boy: God is a God of promises.

I have no doubt that there are those who, even as they read this, say to themselves, “Yea? Well He never kept any promises to me!” I don’t know your circumstances and I cannot speak to them. What I can speak to are the promises of God to the Hebrew people—the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the great panorama of time.

Lewis Smedes, Standing on the Promises (Thomas Nelson, 1998), 196 pages, ISBN 9780785270089.

I have liked Lewis Smedes for the past 15 years or so. I only know him through his books but that’s enough for me. The first Smedes’ book I read way back those years ago was on forgiving and through that book I forgave a man who I thought had violated me in the business world. I found that by adopting and following what Smedes wrote about forgiving permitted me to become the head and no longer the tail, a delightful turn of events I assure you.

With that experience in mind, I have continued to read much of what Smedes has written over the intervening years and when I saw Standing on the Promises in the Fuller Seminary bookstore, I took one home. Smedes has the ability to say a great deal in a few words so his books are not overwhelming in their size.

I soon found myself thinking about Hope in ways that I had never thought to think until Smedes led me there. His treatise is presented in three points with each point divided into ten short subsets, each with a point of its own.

His entry view of hope prescribed the elements of hope and what was needed for hope to exist. We need life for hope and hope for life. From there he teaches how to prioritize our hopes and finally how to see the hand of God in making our hopes reality or closing the door on what was never to be. As an example of this closure, our daughter lost her husband to cancer early this year. We had all prayed and hoped for five years that he would conquer this terrible disease. He did not and that hope is gone.

As I worked my way through the book I thought of my own hopes, intimate personal things like hoping that my 20 year long obligation to pay alimony to my former wife would end, that my 21 year old grandson would be saved and that I could find a publisher in the religious marketplace. I have other hopes too—I would like to have several million dollars at my disposal and I hope that happens soon—but not all of my hopes have the same intensity.

Smedes shares his hopes as the book winds its way to its end. He is ten years older than I and his hopes relate to his health and that of his wife. His hopes are grander and much more noble than mine. He hopes for a world that rises above the behavior and strife that ours faces each day. I enjoyed the hope he expressed for the future of our world.