Abraham is one of the greatest examples of faith in the Bible. He’s known as the father of faith. If you were to look up his picture in his high school yearbook, you would see that he was the captain of the faith team. He didn’t have a perfect record, but he did lead the team in scoring.
It’s easy to have hindsight faith, but it takes strong faith to walk out a promise from God that you haven’t seen yet. That’s the life of Abraham. After waiting almost 25 years for a son, here’s when things began to change for Abraham.
Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. (Gen. 17:3-6)
In these verses, you’ll notice that God changed his name from Abram to Abraham. His name was changed from “exalted father” to “father of many nations.” In a stroke of irony, Abraham’s name was changed before he had Isaac, not after. Most people would change their name after the miracle, not before, but that’s not how God works. For God believing is seeing.
Imagine walking around calling yourself Abraham, and yet your wife was still barren. Imagine speaking your new name, yet nothing changed about your circumstances. It takes real faith to believe for something you can’t see.
Abraham had to walk around speaking and hearing his new name a year before Sarah gave birth to Isaac. I believe that Abraham’s faith began to grow and that something inside of him and Sarah began to change. A womb that was once dead and unable to support life became the place where a promise was conceived and would eventually give birth to a miracle. Abraham became what he believed.
Maybe God expects the same from us. What would happen if we started confessing what we believed and hoped for? I’m not talking about a name it and claim it or blab it and grab kind of faith. I’m talking about taking hold of the word of God as his promise to us and making it our confession of faith.
The Apostle Paul wrote about the faith of Abraham in Romans 4:17…
As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.
That’s what the word of God does. The word of God gives life to dead things and calls things forth as if they already were. Some promises in your life are going to require you to vocalize them. You might sound foolish, but that’s okay because you’re in good company. Noah built an ark in the middle of the desert without ever having seen it rain before. Gideon defeated thousands of men, with only 300 men armed with torches and trumpets. Joshua marched around Jericho for seven days, and the walls came down with a shout. David killed the giant with a sling and a stone. I could go on, but we need to wrap this up.
Some promises take time to germinate and grow. Just because you don’t see your promise happen overnight, don’t give up too soon. Some of them are going to require some extra reps. What promises do you need to start speaking?