Romans 4: 18-25

"(18) Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." (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. (20) Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, (21) being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. (22) This is why "it was credited to him as righeousness." (23) The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, (24) but also for us, to whom God will credit righeousness - for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. (25) He was delievered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justificaiton."

I love the point that Paul makes in these passages. He tells Abraham (picture white haired, wrinkled, maybe bent and walking with a stick, no children) that he's to be a father of a great nation and He tells Sarah (picture grey hair and wrinkled) that she will have child. Even Paul acknowledges that Abraham had every right to not believe God, but he did and was rewarded beyond belief for his faith. So lets say you are staring at a seemingly-insurmoutable problem - you have mountain of debt, you are in a bad relationship with someone, you have a health problem, you can't seem to get your act together is studying God's Word, whatever - God has promised you His love, His help and His mercy if you only have faith in him. If God can make Sarah have a child well past child-bearing years and make child-less Abraham into a father of a nation as vast as the stars in the sky, then He can help you overcome anything in your life. BUT ONLY TROUGH FAITH.

We should allow ourselves to be like Abraham. Abraham saw an insurmountable problem and like to see him thinking, "Well, I can't overcome this problem by myself, so I'm going to HAVE to trust in the Lord." If he had thought, "I'm going to do this all by myself," the I would not be sitting here today. In our world we are taught to be self-sufficient and only rely on ourselves, but we cannot do this for everything. If God has set your feet on a path, trust Him to help you find your way. If you dug yourself into a hole, trust Him to build you a ladder so you can climb out.