The great missionary, C.T. Studd, wrote one of my favorite choruses:

Faith mighty faith the promise sees and looks to God alone,
Laughs at impossibilities and cries it shall be done.
And cries it shall, it shall be done,
And cries it shall, it shall be done,
Laughs at impossibilities and cries it shall be done.

Abraham and Sara experienced one of the many great impossibilities recorded in the Bible. By faith Sara received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. God had said that Abraham and Sara would have innumerable descendants, but not until ninety years of age, and past the years of childbearing, did God fulfill His promise and give them Isaac by a miraculous birth. The delay was necessary as Isaac was to be a picture of the miraculous conception and birth of the coming Messiah.

Faith is obeying God even when we do not understand His plan; it is choosing to act in accordance with what God has promised to do, even if it seems to be an impossibility. Paul tells us in 2Corinthians 5:7 that “we walk by faith, not by sight”. In every decision of our life we have to make this choice—faith or sight. Hebrews 10:38 tells us that “the just shall LIVE by faith”. In other words, faith is meant to be our way of life.

We read in 1Peter 3:6 that “Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror”(NKJV). What is that terrifying fear? It is the fear of surrendering control of your life. It could be similar to the trembling we sense as we climb into the passenger seat and proceed to try to teach our teenager to drive. No matter how hard we press both feet against the floor it doesn’t help the car to stop because we have surrendered control of our life to another.

When Norma (my wife who is now with the Lord) was in High School she was told by a friend that she needed to turn her life over to the Lord. Her reply was “If I turn my life over to God He will ruin it.” After she trusted Christ as her Savior her life statement became, “Present your life to God and let Him prove to you that His will is perfect” (based on her favorite Scripture portion: Romans 12:1-2). Norma had simple assurance that God was worthy of her complete confidence. She lived by faith. She was a true daughter of Sarah, who was the mother of all women of faith.

Her parents were not believers, and when her antagonistic father told her to get rid of her religion or leave home, she calmly prepared to leave rather than deny her faith in Christ. Later her mother interceded and told her to stay, commenting: “As long as I have a roof over my head you will too”.

Of course, after we were married there continued to be opportunities to live by faith. I was pastoring a church in Michigan and Norma was an elementary school teacher. Since she had her summers free we bought a mobile home on a nearby lake. Norma thought it would be nice to have a pontoon boat to cruise around the three adjoining lakes connected by canals.

For me Sunday to Friday were workdays. Saturdays were my days of rest and gladness, to crash and relax. Nevertheless they were often filled with a multitude of chores, such as fixing light switches, unplugging drains, mowing the grass, planting flowers, etc., and now should we add a pontoon boat? I was not interested in any more Saturday work than I already had, and could envision a boat needing to be put into storage, taken out of storage, needing gas or a new spark plug, not wanting to start, or quitting in the middle of the lake. I had heard that the best two days in the life of a boat owner are the day he buys it and the day he sells it, so instead of being attentive to my wife’s desires I dragged my feet. I did not want any more work on my day of rest.

As the days passed I was pleased that she did not mention the matter again. There was no nagging, no moping, no silent treatment, just her same happy self. Nothing like the couple that on another occasion stopped to look at the porch furniture we were selling. She loved it and he said they didn’t need it. Later she came back alone, bought it all, put it in her pickup truck and as she got in the cab said, “A woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do”

Norma had two great promises of God that helped her walk by faith.
One verse was Proverbs 14:1 “Every wise woman builds her house: but the foolish plucks it down with her hands.” A woman strengthens her family when she walks by faith, but tears it down when she takes things into her own hands. Parental arguments destroy the children’s security. The greatest fear of a child is that his parents might separate. Or maybe God was protecting our son or his friends from drowning as they would be diving off the boat. She was not willing to destroy her family over a boat.

The second verse God used to strengthen her faith was Proverbs 21:1 “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turns it wherever he wants to.” She was confident that God could channel her husband’s heart, so her prayer was, “God, I am going to rejoice in the anticipation of seeing how you channel his heart if you want us to have a boat”.

Several weeks later, as I was driving into the park, I noticed a pontoon boat in the front yard of a trailer with a For Sale sign on it and at a very reasonable price. It looked like new boat, and the owner affirmed that it was only a year old and was in like new condition except for the floor. The reason for the cheap price was that the manufacturer had used chip board for the floor of the boat instead of marine plywood and after just one summer of lake water splashing up against it, the entire floor was disintegrating and would need to be replaced. He had returned to the company to complain only to discover that they had gone out of business and were nowhere to be found. He had gone to another company and was told it would cost $1000 to replace the floor. Since he had hardly used the boat and decided he didn’t really want a boat he would sell it cheap and let the new owner fix it.

I was excited. I had needed a project to work on with my teenage son to have some togetherness and also to help him learn more skills. Besides, I was sure he would be delighted to tear the boat apart, replace the floor and put everything back together again. I knew that the plywood and carpeting would only cost around $200 so we could pay cash for the boat and not go into debt.

As I came up to our trailer pulling the boat, Norma was on the porch with a big smile. I thought she was just so happy to see me bringing a boat, but later I found out that the biggest part of her joy was not the boat, but that God had worked a miracle and she had not taken things into her own hands.

A couple of years later at the park Norma mentioned how nice the neighbors back yard looked since they covered the sand and weeds with black dirt and then put in a nice green lawn. They were the corner lot across the street from our corner lot so our back yards were in full view to the street. But most lots had only had grass in front or none at all since the yards came with just beach sand. Black dirt had to be brought in from a distance and was very expensive. It would take a ton of black dirt and then it would have to be spread evenly, seeded, watered, and cut regularly. My son, Paul, had found a Saturday job so now he no longer had time for us to work on projects together. Besides, planting a lawn and cutting grass would not be an exciting project in his opinion anyway, so I decided to just drag my feet.
At this point are you thinking, “Jay, didn’t you remember how you dragged your feet about the pontoon boat? I guess I didn’t. But, when Abraham told Abimelech that Sara was his sister, didn’t he remember being rebuked by Pharaoh when he told that same half-truth in Egypt? How could Abraham have forgotten that incident? Somehow neither Abraham nor I learned our lesson the first time around.

What should have been my response? I should have told Norma that we would pray together about that lawn and put it in God’s hands, and if He makes it clear and provides the funds we will do it. Then we both could have rejoiced when God answered. But at this point it was still all about me and I dragged my feet again. Norma, however, was as happy as if she already had the lawn, and now, you know why. I thought she had given up on the idea, but actually she had turned me over to God and was jubilant in the anticipation of what He was going to do. I was happy that she seemed to have forgotten the matter.

A few weeks later as I was about to pull into our lot I saw a huge truck dumping black dirt on our neighbor’s back yard. The truck itself occupied our entire back yard to access our neighbor’s yard. After it pulled out I went over to talk to our neighbor to ask where he got all that beautiful black dirt and if it was very expensive. He replied that it was free and if I would go to the park office and give them my lot number they would bring me a load also.

I rushed over to the park office to find out if I could get a truckload and to ask why they were giving it away. The secretary informed me that she would put my lot number on the list and the truck would be there shortly since they were getting the dirt right on the park grounds. The park owner needed room for more trailers so he had decided to use a sand dune near the beach to expand the beach area and then level the area of the dune to lay cement pads for new trailers that wanted to move in. The surprise was that the sand dune turned out to be a huge dune of black dirt covered over with a layer of beach sand. Since a company was coming the next day to lay the cement pads he had to get all that black dirt out of there and get the area leveled off. Since there was no time to try to sell the dirt he was glad for any residents who would accept a truckload.

A few minutes later a truck arrived at our lot and dumped a huge amount of black dirt for me to spread around. I sowed it with grass seed and within a few months we had a beautiful back yard lawn. Norma was radiant, not just because of the lawn, but because God had done it again.

Faith, however, is not just for marriages, but applies to every area of life. The just shall LIVE by faith. A new principal arrived at the school where Norma taught. He came with a whole new program as to how the teachers should run their classrooms. The previous principal had let each teacher run their classroom as they wished. Most of the teachers liked the way Norma was running her room and followed her method. Now everything was changed and nobody liked the new rules, but the principle was inflexible. Most of the teachers just kept their classroom door closed and did their own thing, but Norma, having turned the new principal over to God, followed the new plan and left her door open. She knew that the heart of the principal was in the hand of the Lord and he could turn it as He wished. She also wrote up a summary of how she had been running her classroom in case he might find any of the ideas useful. She took it to the school office and the secretary said she would place it on his desk.

Weeks passed and she heard nothing from him, but one day he called a teacher’s meeting. He stated that he had new classroom guidelines and all teachers would follow this new procedure. He said nothing about Norma’s letter to him, but all the teachers recognized that he had taken Norma’s ideas. However, they were only cautiously jubilant since he was obviously taking credit for the new schedule.

Living by faith can apply to every area of life. A husband shared with me that if God can change the king’s heart he can also change the heart of the queen. Regarding an important decision on which they differed he had asked God to confirm His will by turning her heart. He then waited for God to do it and was thrilled when the day came that she said, “Let’s do it.”

Without faith it is impossible to please God, not just for salvation, but as a Christian my daily life must be characterized by faith—complete confidence in the promises of God and obedience to the commands of God. I must not live by what looks good to me, but by what God promises to do if I will trust him.

Faith mighty faith the promise sees and looks to God alone.

Listen to "The Power of Parental Faith" in the birth of Moses