This post is an excerpt from Alexandra Hoover’s Bible study, Without Wavering: Resilient Faith Built on the Promises of God.
When I was a girl, I remember walking down the halls of my middle school and hoping that no one would see just how scared I was to be there. I was being severely bullied by a group of girls who made it their goal in life to convince me I wasn’t welcome and to try to get me to just give up.
Each day I walked in with that feeling in the pit of my stomach—you know which one I’m talking about, the one that rears its atrocious head when insecurities, doubt, and worry begin to make themselves a home in your heart and mind. This feeling became a posture of self-doubt, fear, and angst. And tragically, it’s never gone away; I’ve just adapted to it. Life has a way of awakening the insecurities that lay dormant.
It didn’t take long before I struggled to keep showing up in a space that left me wounded. But do you know what helped me keep going? My middle school counselor, Mrs. Polard. She was a soft place to land, a woman of love and light for a heart that needed it. With her I was able to laugh-cry off the days that crippled me with fear and sadness. I trusted her. And so, I showed up.
I tell you this story because it reminds me of our journeys through life. If your life looks anything like mine, then every day there are moments we come up against, each one with the potential to wound us, to steal our joy. We live in a fallen world marred by sin. What hope can we cling to? We need something—Someone—to look to, Someone to help pull us through. Being a Jesus follower invites us to something greater, something more than the brokenness of our world. In Christ we find belonging and purpose, for today and forever. In Christ we receive the resilience to show up and step forward.
Yesterday, we considered what faith is, using Hebrews 11:1-3 as our guide. Today, we’ll pick up where we left off in Hebrews 11. After defining faith, verses 4-38 give us example after example of people in the Old Testament who—“by faith”—walked in obedience to God and lived out their God-given assignments as His children. Their stories show they were not always without fear or doubt but that they had trust in their God.
The examples we see in Hebrews 11:4-12—Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah—take us back to the earliest chapters of Genesis. From the moment Adam and Eve were banished from the garden and the presence of God, His relationship with His children became one of faith rather than sight. By faith . . . By faith . . . By faith. This phrase is the heartbeat of Hebrews 11 and the key to how each of these individuals lived in obedience to God, even as they faced hardships like ridicule, isolation, barrenness, and other all-too-familiar trials.
Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.”
Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:7b-10 (CSB, emphasis added)
Earlier in the book of Hebrews, the author encouraged his readers “to persevere in the face of adversity, and have confidence in God, assuring them that His promises will be fulfilled (Heb. 10:19-38),” a theme he’ll return to again in chapter 12.1 Our friends in Hebrews 11 were motivated by faith because of who they knew God to be and the power of His strength at work in them. This is the key to faith in action, to a life where our weakness does not keep us from showing up but is made perfect in God’s strength.
Read 2 Corinthians 12:7b-10 below.
Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.”
Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:7b-10 (CSB, emphasis added)
When we are left with nothing, we boast in our weaknesses. When we can’t keep going, we boast in our weaknesses. When life is too much for us to handle, we boast in our weaknesses. When God calls us to move through life, we live from His power and not ours because faith in Him is our anchor. Self-preservation will never get us where surrender can. I hope it’s great news for you to hear that you don’t have to muster up the emotional grit to take on the pain in your life; you can hand it over to Jesus—Someone much more capable than you are to carry you through.
As a wife, mother, daughter, and friend, I still have days where I feel like that little girl walking the halls of my middle school. I’ve spent nights collecting tears of emotional and spiritual exhaustion on my pillow, hiding away from the world as if my weaknesses and weary soul were things to be hidden. But it’s in moments when obstacles do come—when the winds take us down, when the waves crash over us—that I’m learning to rely on God, His power, and His strength. While He may not immediately and miraculously change my difficult circumstances, I do know He will give me the power to face whatever is in front of me at the moment. I’ve seen Him do so time and again in my life and in the pages of His Word.
Reflect on the past week. What is one “by faith” moment you’ve had this week? Write it down and then spend some time talking to God. Specifically ask Him to help you live by faith more in the coming days.
Enduring, resilient, courageous—these are qualities we want to describe our faith in God. But the truth is that faith is hard, especially when trials, setbacks, and failures seem to define us.
In Without Wavering, a 7-session Bible study with teaching videos, Alexandra Hoover offers encouraging words of hope and examples of unwavering faith from the Bible. Drawing inspiration from the examples of faith in Hebrews 11 and the early church, you’ll see that life’s challenges don’t have to define you. Through hope in Christ, you can become the woman who weathers the storms of life with renewed strength and confidence in who God is and who He says you are.
ABOUT ALEXANDRA HOOVER
Alexandra Hoover is a wife, mother of three, speaker, ministry leader, Bible teacher, and best-selling author of Eyes Up: How to Trust God’s Heart by Tracing His Hand. Her new Bible study Without Wavering is available at lifeway.com/withoutwavering. Find her at alexandravhoover.com and follow her at @alexandravhoover on Instagram.
