It is a patriotic holiday here today in my country, the United States, and as appropriate as it may be to celebrate that, it is not what I am celebrating. Today I am celebrating something much more wonderful even than living in a free country, and that is the gift of faith—for it is by faith and only faith that we stay encouraged enough to survive another day. No human or otherworldly enemy can remove this faith from us.

Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as "a conviction concerning matters that are not being observed." Many of God's greatest promises to us are not being observed. Rather, they are reserved for us in the heavens. Nevertheless, we believe them of an invisible God Who does not lie. It is these convictions that keep us afloat when everything around us wants to shove us to the bottom of  a sea of depression.

Faith is a gift that God will never take away. He may whittle it down at times to make us hyper-aware of it, but He will never take it away because it is more vital to us than our next breath and our most immediate heartbeat.

Now to the King of the eons, the incorruptible, invisible, only, and wise God, be honor and glory for the eons of the eons! Amen! (1 Timothy 1:17).