Trust is developed as we see God working in our lives.  When events become “God sized” then we see that God is alive and real.  Nothing becomes impossible for the Lord.  Our perception of the Lord increases to the point that as we walk by faith, we have complete confidence that what the Lord says, He will do.

Early in Abram’s wandering in the Promised Land, God met with him and told him he is going to have a child.  Abram would become the father of a great nation.  God promises Abram that his descendants will be as the stars in the heavens.  He believed God and was declared to be righteous.  God no longer called him Abram but Abraham…father of many nations.

Abraham believed God’s promise, but as the years went by without a son, it became more difficult.  He was only human.  Abraham and Sarah felt that they could help God by Abraham having a child by her servant Hagar.  When Ishmael was born, Abraham felt this was the fulfillment of God’s promise.  When God met with him again, Abraham said, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!”  (Genesis 17:18)  Abraham wanted God to accept Ishmael as the promised son.  But God said, “No.”  The child must come through Sarah.  Abraham, through his own efforts, tried to fulfill God’s promise.  For after all, he was 99 years old and Sarah was 90 years old.  It was rather late now for them to have a child.

Abraham’s human effort to fulfill the promise was not acceptable.  God was going to give him the promised son.  After that conversation Abraham did not let his human short sightedness hinder his faith.  God supernaturally empowered Abraham and Sarah’s bodies to have a son.  His old age was not an obstacle to an all-powerful God.
 
Abraham struggled in his faith but this is not the same as doubt.  He tried to understand how God’s promise could be fulfilled.  His faith struggled with the physical problems that came with the promise.

But even in this, Abraham, “did not waver in unbelief.”   He did not allow the obstacles and problems to divide his mind but he kept focused on believing God’s promise even when its fulfillment was not humanly imaginable.

There is so much we can learn from Abraham’s life of faith.
 
1.  When God tests our faith, the design of the test is to strengthen our trust and confidence in Him.

2.  We need to realize that “Godly faith is not full understanding but full trust.”  (John MacArthur)

3.  God is in the process of building into our walk of faith, challenges that will lead us to trust Him completely.

How does God want to build your faith today?  What are the obstacles keeping you from fully trusting God?  What action steps can you take to begin the process of building complete trust in God in your life?

New King James Version (NKJV) Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.