Bullet-Proof Faith?

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Richard Davis is a modern example of that adage. In the early 1970's Davis started a company called Second Chance – an American body armor manufacturing company, the very first to use the famous bullet-stopping material known as Kevlar for body armor. The story behind why and how Davis (a former Marine turned pizza shop owner) developed, demonstrated and distributed Second Chance body armor is amazing. Reader’s Digest (04-2004, p 141) gave the following synopsis. "Let’s be clear: this pizza guy was also a Marine. But Richard Davis’ years on the battlefield didn’t inspire his design for the Kevlar vest. No, that came from a much more dangerous activity: delivering Italian food in Detroit. Davis was dropping off a pizza on July 15, 1969, when he realized that the call had directed him to a dark alley occupied by three armed men. Davis was shot twice but escaped with his life. The experience left him shaken, and he started looking into how he could protect himself. So Davis carved out the first vest made of Kevlar, which was much stronger than military nylon. To test the result, David put a phone book behind a prototype and opened fire. The book pulled through unscathed. Still, nobody was biting, so Davis devised a more dramatic display. When he met with prospective buyers, he would put the shaky prototype vest on , aim a pistol at his chest, and pull the trigger. That, ladies and gentlemen, is called a salesman."

That also, ladies and gentlemen, is faith! The Kevlar proved bullet-proof, and Davis’ faith in it did, too! How about you – how bullet-proof is your faith in God? How does your faith perform when life is shooting at you with circumstances that test and try you? And how is your faith being displayed? The Bible depicts many people whose great faith in God was displayed in dramatic ways (see Hebrews 11). Perhaps none is as dramatic as the faith of Abraham. To adapt and modify the story about Davis’s Kevlar body armor, Abraham’s faith was born of necessity! When Abraham was 75 years old, God promised him in Genesis 12 that he would father a son and that through that son his descendants would outnumber the stars (also Genesis 13, 15, 17, 18). Abraham and his wife Sarah got the nursery ready – and then waited 25 years! Abraham was about a hundred, and Sarah 90 when the baby was born! Abraham had a tough, tenacious, bullet-proof kind of faith that wouldn’t give up on God. Abraham’s faith is described by the apostle Paul in Romans 4:18 -20 – Abraham "contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, "So shall your descendants be." And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform." When all hope was gone, when the situation seemed humanly impossible, Abraham continued to trust that God would, in His own time and way, make good on every promise He had made. Abraham’s attitude was, "God said it, that settles it." That’s bullet-proof faith. How tough is your faith?

--Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN