Looking Heavenward in Faith

What Abraham’s long wait can teach us about trusting God when circumstances make belief feel impossible

Faith Is Believing God

Why is it easier to encourage a friend to believe God in the middle of their trials than it is to believe God when trouble comes to our own door? Romans 4 addresses that question through an incident in the life of Abraham placed there by the Spirit of God with a specific intention: to teach us. Between verses 18 and 19 lies a span of fifteen years. This is not a story about a single, isolated act of faith. It is the record of a lifetime of looking heavenward.

The passage opens by saying Abraham believed “against hope” in hope. Against what he could see, he believed in what he could not see. That is faith. And before exploring what faith is, it is worth being clear about what it is not. Faith is not an optimistic outlook. It is not simply hoping for the best. At its most basic, faith is believing God. That word “believe” in verse 18 is the verb form of the noun we translate as faith, appearing 244 times in the New Testament. The simplicity of that deserves to be felt.

Christianity is a supernatural faith, and the world often scoffs at it, dismissing Scripture as an ancient book out of touch with science and reality. That dismissal would make sense were it not for one factor the world refuses to consider: God Himself. Why do we believe in the universal flood, the parting of the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho falling at the sound of trumpets? We believe all of it because we believe in the all-knowing, all-powerful, sovereign God of the universe. You must factor God into the picture. You must believe that whatever is going on in your life right now, God is right in the middle of it.

Faith Is Grounded in the Word of God

Heavenward-looking faith is not only a general trust in God. It is grounded specifically in what God has said. The passage notes that Abraham believed “according to that which was spoken.” There are millions of books in the world, but only one came from our Creator, and what God says in that book, He expects us to believe. Abraham received a word from God. He acted in faith according to what was spoken.

There is an important distinction here between subjective and objective leading. Subjective leading is an inward sense that something is right even without a specific verse, as in the choice of a life partner or a vocational calling. These leadings are real, but they must be held with open hands. Objective leading is rooted in the clear statements of Scripture. When you pray for a lost loved one, seek victory over temptation, or bring a pressing need before God, there are verses that speak directly to those situations. You can come to God with great confidence. And if you find yourself lacking in faith, the counsel is simple: go back to your Bible and let God grow your faith as you learn more of who He is.

The call of faith is to look at the facts honestly, to acknowledge how impossible they seem, and to believe God anyway.

Faith Operates Contrary to Human Experience

Faith operates contrary to human experience. The question verse 19 raises is pointed: does God want us to believe Him without looking at the facts, or while looking those facts squarely in the face? Abraham considered his own body, now as good as dead (he was one hundred years old), and considered the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He was fully aware of the facts before him. Yet when God appeared and laid out the covenant, renaming him from Abram to Abraham, father of a multitude, Abraham’s response was laughter. Not the laughter of mockery or unbelief. The Scripture says he staggered not at the promise of God. He was simply tickled, the kind of laughter that comes when something so staggeringly good lands in your lap that you cannot quite believe it is real. Sarah’s laughter was different. She scoffed. And God’s response was simply, “Is anything too hard for God?”

So, what is God asking you to trust Him for that runs completely against your normal experience? Perhaps you cannot imagine victory over a temptation that has taken you down so many times. Perhaps the financial need in front of you and the resources available simply do not add up. Perhaps a marriage is harder than you expected, or a family member you have prayed for over many years seems no closer to Christ. Whatever your situation, the call of faith is to look at those facts honestly and to believe God anyway. That is exactly what Abraham did.

Faith Endures in the Waiting Room

Perhaps the hardest dimension of heavenward faith is the dimension of time. We simply do not like to wait. You will not find a single psalm where the writer says to God, “You are moving too quickly,” but the cry of “how long?” echoes all through the Psalter. Abraham and Sarah spent twenty-five years in the waiting room, and as time passed, the temptation to take matters into their own hands grew until they finally gave in to it. We know how that turned out. The consequences of trying to manufacture what only God can provide are never what we hoped for.

The book of Hebrews was written to address exactly this struggle. Severely tired and tested Christians are told plainly: do not cast away your confidence, for you have need of patience. After you have done the will of God, you will receive the promise. That is why we sometimes find ourselves in the waiting room. James reminds us that the trying of our faith works patience, and patience is something we all need. God’s timetable is always right, always good, because that is who He is. We simply must be patient.

Faith Is Rewarding

The final truth is the most encouraging: faith is rewarding. The passage says Abraham was strong in faith, giving glory to God. The more you trust God, the more you see Him work, and the stronger your faith becomes, even in the waiting room. And then God does something that no one else could have done, something that looked completely impossible, and you look back and say, only God could have done that.

God did give Abraham that son. And then He tested Abraham’s faith by asking him to offer Isaac on Mount Moriah. Abraham went because he had reasoned it through: God told me my seed would come through this son, so if I must take his life, God is able to raise him up, even from the dead. That is a lifetime of faith speaking, not a single dramatic moment, but a pattern built up over decades of choosing to look heavenward rather than around.

That is the life God calls us to. Many of us would echo that honest, humble cry from the Gospel of Mark, where a desperate father said to the Lord Jesus, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” That tension is not a failure of faith. It may be the most honest expression of faith available to us. God wants us to be fully persuaded that what He has promised, He is also able to perform. All things are possible with Him, if we will simply look to Him in faith.

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Ron Allen is the pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Matthews, NC.

This article reproduces a sermon preached on February 19, 2026 at Bob Jones University, which you can listen to here. We used Claude.AI to turn the transcript into the article. Pastor Allen has reviewed and approved the final form of this article.

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