Obedience is the key to real faith - the unshakable kind of faith so powerfully illustrated by Job's life. Job lost his home, his family (except his wife), his health, and even his hope.

This is real faith: believing and acting obediently regardless of circumstances or contrary evidence. After all, if faith depended on visible evidence, it wouldn't be faith.

For me personally, i find it a little absurd as us Christians to constantly seek new demonstrations of God's power, to expect a miraculous answer to every need which leads to only faith in miracles rather than the Maker.

True faith depends not just upon mysterious signs, celestial fireworks, or grandiose dispensations from a God who is seen as a rich, benevolent Dad; true faith, as Job understood, rests on the assurance that God is who he really is. Indeed, on that we must be willing to stake our very lives for the cause of Christ.

In Romans 9:16-21, Paul says that just as the potter has the power over the clay, so God molds us and makes us and holds us in his mighty hand. He brings into being that which was not. He can stoop down in the dust of the earth and pick up lumps of clay and breathe the breath of life into it until it walks and talks like a natural man. The Potter has creative power and strength.

But more, the Potter has RE-creative power. Jeremiah says that sometimes the pot is married in the potter's hand. Sometimes the pot does not do what it was designed to do. But the potter just takes it, breaks it, molds it, and makes it what he would have wanted it to be. I'm glad to know that when I'm marred and broken, the Lord is not through with me yet. I wand him to re-create me into the form of his will.