This is how they connected with God—in their time, in their way.

If I were king of Christianity, after limiting church services to forty-five minutes and sermons to ten, as well as outlawing church "share time" altogether, I would proclaim a kingdom-wide decree that, at least for a while until we get it, "believe" should be stricken from all of our Bibles and replaced with trust.

Probably for the first time in my life I was beginning to comprehend that trust was a habit I would need to cultivate.

If you place [your bet] with God, you lose nothing, even if it turns out that God does not exist. But if you place it against God, and you are wrong and God does exist, you lose everything.

Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether or not they will follow My instructions.

But Moses said, “Why are you transgressing the commandment of the LORD? This will not succeed!

But in spite of all this, you did not trust the LORD your God,

One day Acsah came to Othniel and urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What do you desire?”

One day Jonathan son of Saul said to the young man bearing his armor, “Come, let us cross over to the Philistine outpost on the other side.” But Jonathan did not tell his father.

Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD lives—the God of Israel before whom I stand—there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!”

So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and there was food every day for Elijah and the woman and her household.