They say Rome wasn’t built in a day.

I think we can say the same about our faith.

We see hints of this in Scripture:

“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ ” (Luke 17:5)

“The father instantly cried out, ‘I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!’ ” (Mark 9:24)

Steadfast trust in God’s promises and character is something that is gradually established in us, brick by brick, year by year.

Take Abraham, for example. This hero of the Old Testament is held out in the book of Hebrews as a paragon of faith.

But he didn’t start out that way. In fact, his record in the faith department was a bit spotty for a while. God had to build up his faith over time…

In Genesis 12 we see God call Abram (Abraham’s original name) to leave his country and his relatives and go to a land that God would show him. Abram’s obedience was partial: he indeed did leave his homeland, but he took his nephew Lot with him. Lot would prove to bring him trouble later on.

Soon after Abram’s encounter with God, in which he is given astounding promises of blessing, land and descendants, a famine strikes his new homeland of Canaan. Abram decides to take his wife to Egypt, where there was food.

Did this show a lack of faith? Perhaps Abram should have stayed in Canaan and trusted that God would provide for him there.

In Egypt, the plot thickens. Afraid that he would be killed so that the king there could obtain his beautiful wife, Abram tells Sarai to say that he and she are siblings. They were in fact half-siblings, but he was being deceptive about the fact that they were married.

Here again we see a lack of faith on Abram’s part. God had promised him descendants, and he didn’t have any yet, so he should have reasoned that God would keep him alive until he did have children. He should have trusted that God would protect him from the Egyptian king, without the need for lying.

Later, despite repeated assurances from God that He would give Abram descendants, Abram’s faith in this promise still seems a bit shaky. His wife Sarai was barren, so he accedes to her suggestion of obtaining children via her servant, Hagar. He tried to help God’s promise along by using human means. This resulted in the birth of Ishmael, which was not part of God’s original plan.

Even after God reconfirmed his covenant with Abram (now renamed Abraham) and clarified that it would be through Sarai (now renamed Sarah) that his promised descendants would come, Abraham still tried to get God to make Ishmael his heir:

“So Abraham said to God, ‘May Ishmael live under your special blessing!’ ” (Genesis 17:16)

This God would not do. God wanted to stretch Abraham’s faith to believe that his barren wife would indeed conceive a child.

Abraham’s faith seemed to take one step forward and two steps back at times. Confronted with yet another king who he thought might want to kill him to get Sarah, Abraham makes the same mistake as before. He lies again and says Sarah is his sister, not his wife. He still didn’t trust that God would take care of him.

But God didn’t give up on Abraham. The promised son, Isaac, was indeed born, when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90. God came through on his promise, and this seemed to effect a sea change in Abraham.

After this, Abraham’s faith was strong and secure. It was only when Abraham’s faith had been built up that God tested him by asking him to sacrifice Isaac.

By now, Abraham knew that God keeps his promises. He was ready to sacrifice Isaac, reasoning that God could raise him from the dead if need be. There was no precedent in Bible history to this point of anyone being raised from the dead: Abraham took it on faith that God could do so. (Of course, God intervened and provided a ram for the sacrifice instead.)

Abraham went from not trusting that God alone would help him in a foreign land; not trusting that God would provide for him during a famine; not trusting (twice!) that God would protect him from a foreign king who was eyeing his wife; to trusting that God would raise his son from the dead!

What does Abraham’s story teach us about our own faith?

If you’re a believer, every blessing, every answered prayer, every test, every challenge, and every hardship that comes your way is working in some fashion to mold your faith. If we disobey God’s commands through our lack of faith, it might not derail His plans for us, but it may well delay the fulfillment of them.

We can learn from Abraham’s life (and especially from his mistakes!) that it’s always best to show faith in what God has promised.

So let’s trust that God is a man of his word, so to speak. As we do so, God is building our faith into an edifice that can withstand any flood, because it’s built on the rock of His truth!

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

philippians 1:6

© 2025 Lori J. Cartmell. All rights reserved.