How You Can Strengthen Your Faith in Hard Times
Faith is a choice.
Early in his life, Eddie Rickenbacker’s mother taught him to pray. Years later, during one of the most difficult crises he ever faced, the faith he learned from her would sustain him and those with him.
It was during World War 1, and Rickenbacker’s plane was on a war mission when it was shot down in the Pacific. After eight days of drifting in rubber life rafts, Rickenbacker and the other men who had survived the crash were growing desperate. There had been no sign of a boat or plane. Some of the men were sick or delirious. They were scorched by the tropical sun, without food or water, their feet blistered and their faces burned.
One of the men had a small Bible, and they took turns reading aloud from it every day. On the eighth day, close to the breaking point, somebody read these words from Matthew 6: “So do no worry, saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink? or What shall we wear? For your heavenly father knows you need these things. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and these things will be given to you as well.”
What happened next must have seemed like a miracle. A gull swooped toward them, landing on Rickenbacker’s head. Rickenbacker reached up and grabbed the gull, so the men were able to eat. A rainstorm followed, and they had…
