Hope is one of the most dangerous things in the world. When we have it, and it is fulfilled, it is a true joy like no other. But when we hope and hope and hope for something, praying and hoping, and it does not come to pass, we can sometimes feel devastated. And fearful to hope again.

Abraham and Sarah wanted children. Badly. A man was defined by his sons, and he couldn’t even have a daughter. Sarah’s arms ached to hold babies.

Then God comes along and says they will have a baby. It is impossible. They are well past the age of child-bearing. It feels like a cruel carrot dangled before the rabbit that can never catch it.

But it was God who said this.

Sarah laughed. It seemed so impossible.

But Abraham? It says in “hope against hope” he believed. It says “he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of god, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.”

This is interesting on so many levels.

It was not Abraham who wavered in unbelief, but Sarah did. After more than a decade of not conceiving, she suggested to Abraham that he sleep with her handmaiden, Hagar. Perhaps that’s how God wanted things to work.

Abraham relented. And slept with Hagar. And she conceived.

So did Abraham “not waver through unbelief”?

It’s hard to say. Perhaps it was desire that caused him to sleep with Hagar and not unbelief. Or perhaps this was a nod to Abraham’s overall picture of faith. It is not known.

But it does say he “was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.” He believed God was able to do what he promised, and he glorified God because of it.

“Being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (v. 21).

This is why his faith was credited as righteousness. And this is the very definition of faith.

At times God gives us things to hope for and believe for, and they seem impossible. More difficult is that they are often tied into the deepest desires of our heart. It makes belief scary.

Worse is when the window of those things seems to close. Abraham was too old. Sarah was too old. John was too old. Elizabeth was too old. Lazarus was already dead.

In hope against hope Abraham believed.

Oftentimes that what happens. Look at Hebrews 11.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them (Hebrews 11:13-16).

They went to their grave in faith and hope. They didn’t see it come to pass when they died. But they believed anyway.

So let’s our faith raise up. Let’s have hope against hope in the promises of God to us. And let’s believe him for what he has said he will do.

Not with fear. Not with despair. B

But with joy.