Abraham’s story in Romans 4 is one of those accounts that strips away shallow optimism and forces us to look at what real faith actually is. His body was as good as dead, Sarah’s womb was barren, the years dragged on—and yet Paul says Abraham refused to stagger at God’s promise. Instead of letting unbelief win, he was strengthened in faith and gave glory to God. This is the kind of faith that doesn’t deny reality, but refuses to let reality have the final word over what God has spoken.

Faith That Stares Down Reality

Faith isn’t pretending the facts don’t exist; it’s bringing the facts under the authority of God’s promise. Abraham looked the situation in the eye—his age, Sarah’s barrenness, all the reasons this should never work—and then looked higher. Scripture says, “Yet he did not waver through unbelief in the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God” (Romans 4:20). Instead of arguing with God’s word, he let God’s word argue with his circumstances. That is where strong faith is born: not in perfect conditions, but in impossible ones.

Hebrews defines this kind of posture: “Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the conviction of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). The world says, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Faith says, “I’ll see it because God has spoken it.” Where are you staring at something that looks final—medical reports, a prodigal child, a difficult marriage, a hardened heart? The call today is not to deny what’s in front of you, but to put it in second place under the first place of God’s unbreakable word.

Giving Glory Before You See the Answer

Notice the order in Abraham’s life: he gave glory to God before Isaac ever cried his first cry. Praise wasn’t his response after the breakthrough; it was his weapon in the middle of the waiting. This is what it looks like to trust the character of God more than the clock on the wall. When you worship God for His faithfulness while nothing seems to change, you are saying with your life, “You are worthy and You are true, even here.” That is why his faith grew stronger instead of weaker—he kept glorifying the One who had promised.

God invites us into that same posture. “Let us hold resolutely to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23). “For all the promises of God are ‘Yes’ in Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:20). To give glory before you see the answer is not wishful thinking; it is agreeing with heaven’s verdict ahead of time. Maybe today that looks like singing when you feel dry, thanking God for a work in your family you can’t yet see, or declaring His goodness over a future that still feels foggy. Every time you choose praise in the dark, your faith roots go deeper.

Strengthened, Not Shattered, by the Wait

Waiting will either erode your faith or enlarge it; it all depends on where you run while you wait. Abraham could have replayed the years in bitterness, but instead he rehearsed the promise. As he leaned into God, something surprising happened: the delay didn’t shatter him; it strengthened him. Waiting became the gym where his faith muscles were built. Your delays can do the same. The very season that feels like it’s breaking you may be the season God is using to make you unshakeable.

James writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. And let perseverance finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2–4). God is not wasting your wait. He is shaping you into someone who can carry the promise well when it comes. Today, instead of asking only, “When will this be over?” ask, “Lord, how do You want to strengthen my faith in this?” That shift turns the waiting room into a workshop of grace.

Lord, thank You that Your promises are sure and Your character is faithful. Strengthen my faith today, teach me to glorify You before I see the answer, and lead me to act in confident obedience to what You have spoken.

What passes for Christianity in our day is cheap religion! To listen to the current concepts of Christianity, we would conclude it is little more than bits of beautiful poetry, a man-made bouquet of fragrant flowers, a kindly smile for our neighbor and a couple of good deeds on behalf of a brother or sister. When I consider some of the elements now offered in Christianity as acceptable religion, I have to restrain myself lest I speak too disapprovingly. I fear my words would be so strong that I would have to repent of them! And I read in the Scriptures that there are some things God does not want us to say even about the devil. What do we find surfacing in much of our Christian fellowship? The complaint that God takes a long time to work out His will. We do not want to take the time to plow and cultivate. We want the fruit and the harvest right away. We do not want to be engaged in any spiritual battle that takes us into the long night. We want the morning light right now! We do not want the cross-we are more interested in the crown!

Every one that hath this hope set on Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure. - 1 John 3:3.

What constitutes perfect hope? First, that it shall be certain; and no earthly hope is so. For we all know that there blends with, and shadows the brightness of, every such anticipation an opposite possibility. "It may be; it may not be.’ And when thus " hopes and fears that kindle hope" are blended as "an indistinguishable throng," and we are tossed from one to the other as a shuttlecock between two battledores, there can be no perfection of hope. If my anticipations are set upon contingent things, they must vary with their objects. You cannot build a solid house on a quagmire; you must have rock for that. So, the only perfect hope is that which grasps a perfect certainty. Christian hope ought to be, if I might so say, screwed up to the level of that on which it is fastened. It is a shame that Christian people should be wavering in their anticipations of that which in itself is certain. A sure and steadfast hope is the only perfect hope.

Again, the perfection of hope lies in its being patient, persistent through discouragement, burning bright in the darkness, like a pillar of fire by night; and most of all in its being operative upon life, and contributing to steadfastness of endurance and to energy of effort. This is exactly what the feeble and fluctuating hopes of earth never do. For the more a man is living in anticipation of an uncertain good, the less is he able to fling himself with wholeness of purpose and effort into the duties and enjoyments of the present. But a perfect hope will be the ally and not the darkener of the brightness of the present. And if we hope as we should for that we see not, then shall we with patience wait for it. I fancy that the experience of most men is that the more they indulge in the pleasant, but profitless, amusement of forecasting to themselves future earthly good, the less are they fit for the strenuous work of to-day. To-morrow deceives us when it is an earthly to-morrow. But " every man that hath this hope in Christ," and only the man who has, " purifies himself even as He is pure."

Here, then, is the sort of hope which it is laid upon us Christian people consciously to try to cherish, one which is fixed and certain, one which is the mother of patience and endurance, one which persists through and triumphs over all trouble and sorrow, one which nerves us for effort and opens our eyes to appreciate the blessings of the present, and one which wars against all uncleanness and lifts us up in aspiration and aim towards the purity of Jesus Christ.

Think of the blessedness of living thus, lifted up above all the uncertainties that rack men when they think about to-morrow. Try to realise the blessedness of escaping from the disappointments which come from all earthward-turned expectations, when the radiant bubble bursts, and there is nothing left in our hands but a little dirty soap-suds, as is the case with so many of our fulfilled anticipations of good. Try to realise the blessedness of escaping from that despairing hopelessness that creeps over men as life ebbs away and the years diminish. And remember the buoyant words of the Psalmist, who, because God was his hope, therefore, though he was "old and grey-headed," sang, "I shall hope continually." The brightest blaze of Christian hope may be on the verge of the darkness of the grave.