It’s not always easy to believe God’s promises, is it? It certainly wasn’t for Abraham. When he was 75 years old, God called him to leave his family and his home and travel into what became known as the Promised Land. And even though he and his wife Sarah had no children at the time, God also promised that he would become a great nation (Genesis 12:2), and indeed the father of many nations (Romans 4:18; Genesis 17:4).

Now, it was hard enough for a 75-year-old man to believe this. What was even harder was the fact that twenty-five years later, Abraham and Sarah were still waiting – well past the time that it was simply impossible for them to have children (Romans 4:19). How could they keep believing in God’s promise?

And maybe that’s where you are today. Maybe faith is hard for you. Maybe the circumstances of your life have made it hard to believe that God can solve your problems, or that He cares enough to help you. Maybe your sin has become so clear to you that you don’t see any way that God could possibly forgive you for what you’ve done. Maybe you’re so broken that you don’t see any way that God could possibly put you back together.

Well, the good news is that Isaac was in fact born – when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 (Genesis 21:5). And the good news is that Jesus did in fact die for our sins, and was raised from the dead so that we might be declared righteous in God’s sight (Romans 4:24-25). And no matter how impossible our situation may seem, no matter how unworthy or broken we may be, God simply asks us to trust His promises to forgive and heal, to welcome and bless all those who believe in Him.

Abraham never gave up on God, but grew strong in His faith, giving glory to God while he waited for the fulfillment of the promise (Romans 4:20-21). May God give us the grace to trust Him the same way today.

Romans 4:13-25 (ESV)

13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring– not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”– in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”
19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.
20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,
21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”
23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone,
24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,
25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.