When God calls us into something that’s really hard, scary, tough, radical … He does that sometimes, have you noticed – what we need is unwavering faith. Yeah, right!  Where do you get that, pray tell?!

You know what I think is absolutely the most difficult thing about faith, it's that sometimes when I believe God for something He doesn't give me the answer I was believing for. Sometimes when I trust God to do something, something that's really good, something that's really powerful, something that would glorify His name, either He doesn't do it or He delays in doing it or He does it in a completely different way.

See when it comes to faith I want it to be simple, I decide what needs doing, I ask God to do it, I believe in Him to do it and He does it. You see, that's simple enough so how come God doesn't get it sometimes? How come He heads off on some tangent when I can see as plain as day what needs to be done, when it needs to be done and how it needs to be done?

Have you ever had that sort of a reaction to God when you've believed in Him for something and He hasn't done it? Yeah, me too and sure our point of view is simple enough but could you imagine what an incredible mess this world would be in if God spent His time dancing to your tune and to mine?

So over these last few weeks we've been chatting about having world-conquering faith. Great, that's in the Bible, we should talk about it but if we're going to talk about faith then we need to talk about what happens when our faith is apparently misplaced, do you think?

We've been working our way through Hebrews chapter 11 over these past few weeks which is all about faith and what we've focused on so far are the parts of that chapter that sees faith getting the sorts of results that we really want. Faith that pleases God, faith that puts our lives into context, radical faith that gets radical results, faith that overcomes our natural aversion to discomfort and inconvenience in following God, the faith that helps us to make the sacrifice that put God in His rightful place as Lord of our lives, faith that conquers the world.

And each of the examples so far that we've spoken about have focused on this successful outcomes of having faith in God, yippee, but the Bible is nothing if it's not realistic and Hebrews chapter 11 talks about those times when God doesn't seem to deliver on our prayers that we've prayed in faith.

Have a listen. This first passage follows on from the Abraham story. God had promised Abraham many descendants when he and his wife Sarah were old and way beyond child-bearing age and He promised Abraham a land of his own, the Promised Land in which his descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the beach.

Question: How much of that promise did Abraham actually get to see? Only two small parts! Firstly God gave him a son, Isaac, miraculously to be sure but only one, not this multitude that God had told him about and secondly, God fleetingly let him pass through the Promised Land but only as an alien.

So what does the Bible have to say about this unfulfilled promise? Here it is. Hebrews chapter11 beginning at verse 11:

By faith he received the power of procreation even though he was too old and Sarah herself was barren because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person and this one as good as dead descendants were born as many as the stars in heaven and as innumerable as the grains of the sand by the sea shore.

All of these died in faith without having received the promises but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on this earth, people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind they would have had the opportunity to return but as it is they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, indeed he has prepared a city for them.

So Abraham didn't see the full outcome of his faith. All bar two of the Israelites that left slavery in Egypt perished in the wilderness and they never saw the Promised Land, only their children and their grand children did and yet God commends them for their faith.

God’s plan, God’s promises span centuries right down to the birth of Jesus. Gods promise of many descendants is what gave Jesus to us and you and I today are blessed because Abraham trusted in God because Israel trusted in God albeit imperfectly, you and I are blessed in Jesus who came through God’s promise to Abraham. God’s plan spanned millennia, way beyond Abraham’s life. Abraham’s life was only just one small piece in the over all jigsaw puzzle and God commends him for his faith. That's the big picture, that's the truth.

You and I, our lives are but one small part in the over all scheme of things, in God’s whole plan for the human race and sometimes from our narrow perspective we can't see the whole picture.

In fact I suggest that our perspective is inheritantly way too narrow, ever fully to comprehend Gods total big picture and so often God makes promises and we step out in faith into those promises and things don't quite work the way we planned and yet those apparent failures can be critical in the over all plan of God.

Again listen to what Hebrews has to say further on this very thing. Having regaled us with all the successes of faith of the various leaders and kings, the writer of Hebrews under the hand of God turns his attention now to the apparent failures of faith. Hebrews chapter 11 beginning at verse 35:

Some women received their dead by resurrection but others were tortured, refusing to accept release in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword, they went about in skins of sheep and goat, destitute, persecuted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.

They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and in holes in the ground yet all these though they were commended for their faith did not receive what was promised since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.

You read that and it seems to me that having faith in God is more important to God than the outcome of the faith. Stepping into the firing line with the distinct possibility of getting shot, trusting God is more important to God than whether or not we get shot. That's what the Scripture is telling us and it's true.

What we're interested in is a narrow form of success, success in our little bit but sometimes our apparent failure or what the world would call failure is a critical part of the jigsaw in God’s overall plan.

The prime example of that is the cross. The cross was a worldly defeat. The disciples were devastated, the miracle man Jesus was dead. They didn't get it at the time that He was dying to save us from our sin. The cross was the greatest victory in human history because it was followed by the empty tomb, the risen Jesus, to give you and me a new life, a resurrection life where we can be born again.

What if Jesus had been saved from the cross? Where would we be now? But I tell you something, I bet you the disciples were praying to God in those final hours that He would be saved, that He would be spared and I bet you had we been one of those disciples that's exactly what we'd have been praying too.

It's not always about winning each battle, sometimes God has a bigger picture and what pleases Him, what He commends us for is a faith that stands, unfailing faith despite the outcomes. By faith.