Romans 4:19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead — since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.
Sometimes in life you just have to “face the facts” and keep going. There is no use in denying the reality of the situation, you just have to take what you have and go forward. To do anything else would just be foolish.
And yet so many people live their life as if there wasn’t heaven or hell in their future, and that their choices now will determine which reality they will spend eternity as a resident. We will all die; that is the reality. So, we should live our lives in light of that reality. No use pretending. No use hiding. Face it!
Too many times people think that faith is a jump in the dark. You think of the most fantastical thing you can imagine, the thing that is furthest from reality, and we put our hope in that. We walk to the end of the gang plank, blindfold and the end of a sword, and we jump boldly where no man has gone before.
There has even been a flavor of Christianity which has encouraged this kind of “head in the sand” belief. The belief goes something like this. Our words have creative power, just like God’s words. So we should never speak something we don’t want to come into existence, or it might.
So if I have a huge growth on your neck, you can never act on that reality. You can’t get it checked by a doctor, but instead must believe that there isn’t any growth at all. If you face the fact, you are having a lack of faith that the LORD is our healer.
Is this Biblical faith?
Our text gives us the story of the Father of Faith in the Scriptures, Abraham. And what did Abraham do when he came up against a fact that seemed contrary to the promise of God? The LORD had promised him a son through Sarah, after all. But they were both “dead” when it came to childbearing as a couple.
“Without weakening in his faith” our text states. That can be difficult when circumstances seem to be piling up against what we know to be the will of God. The mountain of circumstance can overwhelm our faith at times. But Abraham didn’t allow the circumstance to dissuade him from trusting in the LORD.
Abraham “faced the fact”, and he kept moving. This means he must have wrestled with the facts. He thought about all the people he knew who had children, and no one had ever heard of someone as old as they were every having children. And they knew enough biology to know that when a woman’s flow stops, that is it. No more children. And Sarah had been a desert wadi for years, dry as a bone.
But Abraham faced these facts. No ostrich act for him. Head up and eyes open. They were done having children, unless God….
He faced the fact. What fact are you facing, a fact that seems to run contrary to the will of God, but about which God has made a promise to you? Are you able, with the LORD’s help, to not weaken in your trust in Him? Or are you allowing the facts to erode your faith, if they are in reality facts?
What facts aren’t you willing to face? Is your head in the sand in connection to an issue or event? Are there things you are avoiding because of the harsh reality that you face?
It is time to face the facts and trust in the LORD, just as Abraham did. And we know how that turned out!
The Arnold Journey 