40 Verses to Ignite Your Faith: Surprising Insights from Unexpected Passages

Laurie’s life experience gives her great wisdom in bringing insights to life from Scripture verses we often miss, and these insights will deeply encourage your walk of faith.

—John Burke, pastor; New York Times bestselling author, Imagine Heaven

In her latest volume, Laurie Polich Short takes a thought-provoking look at 40 verses that all of us have probably skimmed over dozens of times but never stopped to ‘chew on.’ Laurie’s reflections into each of these passages of Scripture provide powerful insights and meaningful application as we walk out our faith.

—Jim Daly, president, Focus on the Family

How many times have I said to God, ‘I could just get through this if I had enough faith!’ Sometimes things seem so hopeless that it’s hard to remember who God is, how faithful He is to keep His promises, and how He works. Laurie’s study serves as an altar in the desert of our struggle, pointing to heaven whilst we remain grounded on earth. Both encouraging and challenging, Laurie leads us verse by verse from a place of hopelessness to joyful faith.

—Aarti Sequeira, winner, season 6, The Next Food Network Star; TV host

I’m not sure how she does it, but Laurie hears the conversations in my head and answers questions stirring in my heart. I’m excited to have a resource that helps lead me to honest reflection and life-giving insight by using the Bible in a practical but thought-provoking way.

—Helen Denmark Musick, associate pastor, Lexington City Church

Faith is a muscle that atrophies if it isn’t exercised. Laurie Short will help each day become a chance to train.

—John Ortberg, senior pastor, Menlo Church

You will find a depth of faith and insight on every page. Laurie Polich Short is a most incredible communicator who looks at each of these verses in a unique and fresh way. I used her book as a companion to my devotional reading and each day reached deep within my soul.

—Jim Burns, PhD, president, HomeWord; author, Doing Life with Your Adult Children

Laurie Polich Short has a way of making every reader feel as if they are having an intimate one-on-one chat with a friend. She writes with clear messages and thought-provoking questions that make us think and ponder biblical truths in a new, enlightening way. This is a great book for those who are ‘afraid’ of reading a book that might be overwhelming and complicated. I love this author’s down-to-earth style.

—Kerri Pomarolli, comedian

© 2019 by Laurie Polich Short

Published by Bethany House Publishers

11400 Hampshire Avenue South

Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of

Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Ebook edition created 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-1741-4

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations identified ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016

Scripture quotations identified NASB are from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture quotations identified NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

All italics in quoted Scripture passages have been added by the author.

Cover design by Rob Williams, InsideOutCreativeArts

Author represented by WordServe Literary Agency

For all who seek God

and wisdom and hope . . .

and wonder where to go.

Contents

Cover    1

Endorsements    2

Half Title Page    3

Title Page    5

Copyright Page    6

Dedication    7

Introduction    11

1. GENESIS 3:3   The Subtle Insertion of Doubt    13

2. GENESIS 16:2   Moving ahead of God’s Timing    17

3. GENESIS 16:13   Never Alone    21

4. GENESIS 41:1   Remembering and Living Our Waits    25

5. EXODUS 3:12   The Sign Comes after You Obey    29

6. EXODUS 16:19   Manna, Maggots, and Trust    33

7. EXODUS 32:1   The Temptation to Find Another God    37

8. NUMBERS 13:27–28   The Buts That Steer Our Faith    41

9. DEUTERONOMY 10:13   For Our Own Good    45

10. JOSHUA 1:7   Not Turning to the Right or Left    49

11. JUDGES 7:2   Too Much of You Is Not Enough of God    53

12. 1 SAMUEL 3:10   Hearing God’s Voice    57

13. 2 SAMUEL 11:1   The Decisions before the Decision    61

14. 1 KINGS 17:3–4   Elijah’s School of Faith    65

15. 1 CHRONICLES 17:23   The Courage to Pray for the Bigger Story    69

16. ESTHER 4:14   The Story within the Story    73

17. JOB 1:8   God’s Affection in Our Trials    77

18. JOB 42:3   Seeing Our Life in Context    81

19. PSALM 131:2   A Weaned Faith    85

20. PSALM 143:5   Looking Back for Our Future    89

21. ECCLESIASTES 5:15   Nothing You Can Carry    93

22. ECCLESIASTES 11:5   God’s Activity    97

23. ISAIAH 30:21   The Voice behind You    101

24. ISAIAH 50:11   Lighting Your Own Fires    105

25. JEREMIAH 29:5   Build Houses and Settle In    109

26. JEREMIAH 31:33   The Writing on Our Hearts    113

27. EZEKIEL 37:3   The God Who Breathes Life and Hope    117

28. JONAH 1:5   Running Away from God    121

29. JONAH 3:4   The Small Step God Can Use    125

30. HABAKKUK 3:17–18   Defiant Faith    129

31. MATTHEW 1:6   Goodness Is Not Forgotten    133

32. MATTHEW 11:2–3   When Circumstances Bring Doubt    137

33. MARK 2:5   The Answer You Weren’t Looking For    141

34. LUKE 22:32   When You Have Turned Back    145

35. JOHN 11:35   The God Who Weeps    149

36. JOHN 20:21   Sent with Our Wounds    153

37. 2 CORINTHIANS 12:8–9   The Power of Our Thorns    157

38. EPHESIANS 1:18–19   The Eyes of Our Heart    161

39. PHILIPPIANS 1:12   Trusting the Greater Plan    165

40. 1 JOHN 4:12   Making the Invisible God Visible    169

Acknowledgments    173

About the Author    175

Back Cover    177

Introduction

God can sometimes be missing from where we would like God to be.

This observation keeps many people at a distance and can chip away at a believer’s faith. After I wrote a book about my own experience of sitting in the silence of God, my inbox was filled with emails from people who needed encouragement in their waning faith:

Jessica asked why she should hold on to God when it felt like God had let go of her. She spent ten years serving in ministry, had her deepest prayer answered then stripped away, and she wondered why God had abandoned her. All she heard was silence.

Lauren asked if she should continue pursuing her dream career, when she experienced rejection at every turn. She believed God was directing her, held fast to the encouragement of Bible verses, and solicited prayers from people who affirmed her call. So far, all she had been met with was a string of closed doors.

David felt paralyzed by the Scriptures he had memorized (and taught to others) that seemed to have failed him. As he watched friends receive the healing he himself longed for, he was envious and disturbed. He wondered why God seemed to overlook him while granting others the desires of their hearts.

From these conversations, the same questions kept surfacing:

Why do the verses I read in the Bible fail to come true in my life?

How can I have confidence that God is near when my experience is that God is far away?

Are there any Scriptures that can speak to my experience of being fearful and disappointed, and encourage me to hold on to faith?

That last question was the impetus behind this book. For years, when I’ve spoken at conferences, people have said to me, You highlighted a verse in the Bible I’ve never seen before. Enough of these comments showed me there was a need for someone to write about the lesser-known Scriptures that often go unnoticed. Be careful when you think, Someone should do something. It may end up being you.

In this book, I have sought to expose new or glossed-over verses that give us a better understanding of how God works. I have discovered that it is in the in-between verses—the ones that whisper rather than shout—that some mysteries about God become a little clearer.

My hope is that the insights in this book will provide you with new confidence when you experience the fear, disappointment, and silence that play an integral part of your relationship with God. The lesser-known Scriptures that we pass over help us discover new angles that can breathe life into our faith.

I believe there are times when God may be willing to temporarily risk your belief in order to deepen your understanding—for the purpose of ultimately strengthening the relationship you have. So if you have ever been in a place where you wondered if you could even believe anymore, you may be closer to God than you think. Read on and discover why.

1

The Subtle Insertion of Doubt

GENESIS 3:3

But God did say, You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.

If you read this verse too fast, you’ll miss it. But if you look closely, you will see the moment where doubt begins. The response from Eve to the serpent reveals how the strength of our faith is undermined or enforced by our perspective of the way God works. The serpent’s motive seems clear from the start, evident in the way he phrases his question: Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? (Genesis 3:1). Looking back at Genesis 2:17, you can see the difference between the serpent’s words and the boundaries God actually gave. There was one tree God asked Adam and Eve to refrain from; it was the first opportunity given to humanity to exercise free will. By introducing this choice, God gave Adam and Eve their first chance to obey.

This raises the obvious question: Why did God put the tree there to begin with? Because without it, Adam and Eve would be left with only previously selected alternatives, and offering a choice is the only way to introduce human freedom. In the garden, we see God setting the stage to woo rather than control humanity. Had God created a world without choice, Adam and Eve would be puppets for God to program rather than human beings for God to love. But the doubt-planting serpent takes God’s gift of freedom and twists it, attempting to make the restriction bigger than it is: "Did God really say you must not eat from any tree?" The serpent knows what humanity has been discovering ever since: The bigger God’s withholding feels, the more we are apt to succumb. Why doesn’t God make room for what I want to do? we silently ponder, and if we dwell on these thoughts, our perspective of God morphs into a pleasure restrictor, dead set on keeping us from our longings. We become like teenagers who question parental boundaries and conclude that their parents are out to ruin their lives. Then they grow up and become adults and realize their parents were out to save their lives. Becoming an adult may be just what God is after in our souls.

Our longings can range from companionship to provision, success to pleasure, and the quick answers to all these things dangle in front of us, with only teeny compromises to overcome. We even become emboldened by focusing on God’s unreasonable commands and use His denial of seemingly good things as motivation to plow ahead. Meditating on what happens next in these verses can help us turn the tide before it’s too late.

Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? the serpent hisses, laying his picture of God as a tyrant out for display. Eve starts her response nobly, remembering immediately those were not God’s words. But her memory of God’s restriction adds words that show the wedge her doubt has begun to make: "God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die." With this small added phrase, Eve chooses to highlight and build upon what she cannot do. Rather than focusing on the life-giving reasoning behind the directive, the restrictive piece of God’s command is emphasized and enlarged.

Oh, how we have been there. The co-worker who edges closer and treats you better than your spouse does. The drink offered at