A prefix is a word or letters placed before another word (e.g. recreate, unacceptable, disinterested), usually changing the meaning of the original word. I find it interesting that so many of the things God wants to do in our lives involve the prefix re (meaning again). God wants to regenerate us (give us new birth, being born again), renew us, revive us (bring to life again that which has died) and rebuild our lives.

A suffix is a morpheme added at the end of a word (e.g. kindly, fearful, hopeless). These are common in the English language and effectively give us a wider vocabulary based on an original word (thus hopeful and hopeless are both based on the word hope, but the suffixes -ful and -less change the meaning of this word in different ways.)

I find it interesting that we often feel fearful and hopeless (full of fear and without hope), whereas God wants us to be fearless and hopeful (without fear and full of hope.) The few letters of a suffix can make a big difference to the attitudes we need to display!

Jesus can transform us in different ways, at times removing wrong things from us (fear) and at times adding right things to our lives (hope). We need to be prepared to let go of wrong things and to receive right things.

An interesting play on words is found in the aphorism ‘God deals in cans, not cannots.’ May today be a ‘can’ day in God!

We also celebrated a May birthday tonight.

Abraham is the key example to us in the Old Testament of someone who didn’t have all the answers but who still trusted God. God had promised Abraham He would give him a son in his old age. Abraham and Sarah were old and had been married a long time and it didn’t look like they would have children. Abraham was rich, but it all seemed pointless to him if he didn’t have a son to leave his wealth to. So God promised he would have a son and Abraham believed that promise for very many years. He didn’t always get it right: sometimes he tried to sort it out himself and get a son by sleeping with his wife’s servant. But ultimately, as he carried on believing God, God gave him a son. Paul says, ‘Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.’ (Rom 4:18-21)

Abraham didn’t expect the answer to come from his own body anymore. He didn’t expect the answer to come from his own reasoning. He knew he needed a miracle from God and that’s what he got. He didn’t stop believing God, even when he didn’t understand. That’s why he’s called the father of faith, because he kept on believing.

Even when we don’t see… even when we don’t understand… even when we’re bewildered and confused, we can still believe. God wants us to live by faith and not by sight, to be like Abraham who was declared righteous by God because of his faith. Paul says that doesn’t just apply to Abraham. He said, ‘the same thing gets said about us when we embrace the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless.’ (Rom 4: 24, The Message) A dead man doesn’t come back to life, does he? But Jesus did, and because of His death and resurrection, we can be set right with God and can have a hope that lasts beyond this lifetime. Even when we don’t have the answers, we can still believe and trust that God knows what He’s doing and will sort everything out. Even when we don’t see, we can still believe.

Often, when we are confused and bewildered and don’t seem to have any answers to big questions (‘if God is so loving and powerful, why has this happened?’), the temptation is to give up. We conclude that God must either be not so loving or not so powerful and we stop believing what God says about Himself and come to our own conclusions. Jesus talked about this a little when He told His disciples the parable of the sower. In that parable, he talked about sowing seed into different kinds of soil and how much growth there was. Then He said, ‘When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. he seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.  But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.’ Matt 13:19-23)

Jesus said if we don’t understand something, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown. We don’t let the seed stay there to grow in due time; instead, we just give up on God. Or when trouble or persecution comes, if we don’t have roots in God, we’re uprooted and give up. Sometimes the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke out what God wants to do in our lives. We worry instead of trusting, or we trust in the wrong things, thinking that money will make us happy. All these reactions stop us from believing God and pressing on with Him.

The disciples had doubts and questions about whether it really was Jesus, alive from the dead, but that didn’t alter the reality of the resurrection! What we need to do with our doubts and questions is bring them to God. Instead of running away from Him because we don’t understand and we’re scared, we need to walk by faith and not by sight.