Tonight I’m in Genesis, where the Lord tested Abraham’s faith. The story is one seemingly well-known but tonight it took on a different color.

Genesis 22, God came before Abraham and makes a somewhat confusing request: to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. In verses 9-10 we find Isaac lying on a stack of wood and his father reaching for a knife. Abraham had been trusting God to provide a sacrifice, yet from Abraham’s perspective, time has expired and he sees no substitute. But just in time, in verses 11-14, an angel stops Abraham from killing his son by showing him a ram caught in a nearby thicket. Abraham offers the ram as the substitute for his son and calls this mountain in the land of Moriah “The Lord Will Provide.”

Studying tonight, I find a couple of new truths:

1. A person’s faith in God can grow. So if you find yourself with little faith in what God tells you, there is hope. Your faith can grow to the limit of God’s faithfulness. 

2. You grow your faith when you trust God to do what He said He would do. Like exercising a muscle — the more you use it, the stronger it becomes.

3. Sometimes God waits a long time (from my perspective) to do what He said He would do. A lesson in patience.

That first one is one I find particularly cling-worthy. Too often when I find my faith to be weak, I find myself immensely discouraged. That truth, though, sparks a challenge to me in those moments of what I perceive to be weak faith. But my faith can grow the limit of God’s faithfulness, and the way I grow my faith is when I trust God to do what He said He would do. And something to remember is that what He said He would do, may not be something specific. What He said He would do can be found in the vast number of promises found all over pages of the Bible.

So I resolve, whenever my faith is weak, to go back to all those promises about His solid-rock faithfulness, and strengthen it.