You can’t read the “Heroes of Faith” chapter in the Bible without remembering that those listed there were sinners, every one. Take Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Rahab, Samson, David… the list goes on. Each one lived a life that was spotted with the same kinds of sins which plague us in our world today: deceit, drunkenness, sexual impurity, anger, jealousy, murder, etc.

But all of these people also “were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance…. They were longing for a better country—a heavenly one” (v. 13, 16).

Our prisoner-contributor for today chose this Hebrew passage because “when times get hard for me and I just want to give up, I always think about faith and hope. I have faith in what I have not seen.”

C.S. Lewis wrote, “I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must… press on to that country” (1952).