Holding the Father’s Hand

For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. ISAIAH 41:13

If faith is not something we generate, what is it? Evans’s answer, given in He Holds My Tomorrows, in Stepping Stones and in his sermon on faith, is one of the most distinctive things he teaches. Faith, as he defines it, is God Himself touching the human heart and stirring it towards His will. The initiative is always God’s; the answering obedience is ours. So faith is seen, not in how strongly we believe, but in how we respond.

His favourite picture for this is not a mountain-moving hero but a small child walking along a pavement holding its father’s hand.

Examples, not heroes

The argument begins with a surprise. If you were asked to choose Bible characters to illustrate the walk of faith, Evans suggests, you might pick Daniel, or Elijah, or Caleb. Yet when Paul, James and the writer to the Hebrews choose their examples, those names are missing. Instead we find Abraham, who twice passed his wife off as his sister to save his skin; Sarah, who laughed at God’s promise; Jacob, a deceiver; Moses, who had killed a man; and, most startling of all, Rahab the harlot, a liar and a traitor to her own city.

By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace. HEBREWS 11:31

Some call Hebrews 11 the chapter of the heroes of faith. Evans sees no heroes there. He sees ordinary, flawed people whom God led along many different paths to fulfil His purposes. Some conquered kingdoms; others were sawn in two. Some escaped the sword; others died by it. If faith were a matter of strong believing, the chapter would make no sense. But if faith is God moving in a person and that person yielding, then it makes perfect sense, and it means that anyone, however weak, can begin to walk by faith today.

The same pattern appears in the Gospels. Evans notes that Jesus commended the faith of only six people by name or incident, and that his choices are just as surprising: a Roman centurion, a woman with a long haemorrhage who was ritually unclean, a Canaanite mother, blind Bartimaeus, a sinful woman who anointed His feet, and a Samaritan leper who returned to give thanks.

When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. LUKE 7:9

At least three were not Jews, several were unclean, and all were sinners. What they had in common, Evans argues, was that each responded in obedience to an inner witness: the centurion recognised Jesus’ authority, the woman reached out to touch His garment though no one had taught her to, the Canaanite woman and Bartimaeus saw Him as the Son of David, the leper came back to worship. In every case, he says, faith was shown and fulfilled in obedience.

Revelation, then obedience

Evans finds the same sequence in Peter’s great confession at Caesarea Philippi. Jesus tells Peter that flesh and blood have not revealed to him who Christ is, but the Father in heaven. Revelation comes first, from God; then confession and obedience follow. The rock on which Christ builds His church, Evans suggests, is not Peter’s impulsive personality but faith of this kind: God’s initiative answered by man’s response.

Noah is his clearest Old Testament case. It was not hard to believe God when He spoke; what made Noah a man of faith was that he did all that God commanded, building a vessel for a flood he had never seen.

Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he. GENESIS 6:22

Abraham, likewise, went out not knowing where he was going. He did not argue or negotiate. He obeyed.

A Father’s hand

This is where Evans’s picture of the child comes in. The walk of faith, he says, is a daily submission to God’s will, both what He has revealed in Scripture and what He has not yet revealed to us. It is a small child keeping hold of its father’s hand. The child does not know whether today’s walk will end at the sweet shop or at the dentist. Evans adds, with a smile, that if we go often to life’s sweet shop the Father will certainly have to take us to the dentist sometimes. Sometimes a ball bounces into the road and the child lets go and runs after it, and the great danger comes bearing down. But long before it arrives, the Father has pulled the child back onto the pavement. It is not the child’s grip that saves him, but the Father’s.

Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. PSALM 73:23–24

This is the conviction behind the title of his book on faith. The future is hidden from us, Evans says in many ways and in many places, but the One who holds the future is not hidden, and He has hold of our hand.

Evans also finds the idea in a verse he loves, Galatians 2:20, where the King James Version speaks of living by the faith of the Son of God. He argues that this is the correct rendering, and that Paul means the believer lives by Christ’s own faith working in him, not merely by his own faith in Christ. Scholars are genuinely divided on how to translate Paul’s phrase, and both readings have long histories; the reader need not settle the question to receive the truth Evans draws from it, which is clearly taught elsewhere. The Christian life is Christ living in us.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. GALATIANS 2:20

Faith and works reconciled

This understanding of faith also dissolves, for Evans, the old tension between Paul and James. He notes that Luther famously spoke slightingly of James. But if faith is a heart that obeys the moving of God, then James is simply saying that where there is no obedience, there is no faith; it is dead. Paul says we are justified by faith, not by works of the law; James says that living faith always shows itself in what we do. Both are true.

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. JAMES 2:17

Meek and pliable

Evans ties all this to the meek, whom Jesus called blessed. Meekness is not weakness but teachableness, clay yielding to the potter’s hand. That is the work of faith: a heart so in tune with God that it moves when He moves. He is not talking about hearing voices; most of the time the Father leads quietly, through Scripture, circumstances and the inner witness of His Spirit, as the next chapter explores.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Hebrews 11 at one sitting and list the failures of the people named there. Let the list encourage you that God can lead you too.

2. Ask yourself where, at present, God has made His will plain to you and you have not yet obeyed. Take one step of obedience this week.

3. Picture yourself as a child holding the Father’s hand. Where are you tempted to let go and chase something across the road? Name it before Him.

4. If you have been anxious about tomorrow, write down one thing you are worrying about and pray over it, giving the hand that holds it back to the Father.

5. Consider whether you are teachable. Ask someone who knows you well whether you are easy or hard to correct, and listen to the answer.

A PRAYER

Father, You chose liars and schemers and outsiders to be examples of faith, and You have chosen me. Thank You for leading ordinary people.

Give me a meek and teachable heart, pliable in Your hands, quick to obey when You move.

When I let go of Your hand and run after the things that glitter, pull me back before I am crushed, and forgive me.

My tomorrows are hidden from me, but they are not hidden from You. Hold my hand today. Amen.