Nine years sounds like nothing when you say it out loud. Living through it is a different story. Every month opens with a flicker of hope, and by day ten that hope is gone again. The tears stopped somewhere along the way — what’s left now is just a dull, heavy tiredness that never fully lifts.
And it’s never just one thing. The savings meant for treatment ran out a long time ago; there have been months when borrowing money from family felt like the only option. Work doesn’t slow down to make room for grief — another day off for another hospital visit, another look from a manager that says more than words. “Still haven’t bought a house?” “Still not settled down?” Relatives ask these questions like they’re harmless small talk, but each one lands like a small hit, because it feels like everything — the house, the career, the family — is stuck at the same time. At weddings, when someone brings up children, the smile comes automatically now. Nobody needs to know what’s underneath it.
The body carries this too, not just the mind. Sleep gets thinner. Every month is a small climb of hope followed by a fall. Money worries, job pressure, the sense of never quite arriving anywhere — all of it stacks up until one question won’t leave: has any of this praying actually mattered? Is God even listening, or is this just talking to an empty room? Anyone stuck in that question should know there’s a man in the Bible who sat exactly there — for over twenty-five years.
The Promise
“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”
— Genesis 15:6 (KJV)
The Story Behind This Verse
Some backstory helps here. God had called Abram to leave his home, with a promise attached — Abram would become a great nation, and this land would belong to his family. Abram believed it and left, moving through country after country, surviving a famine trip to Egypt, rescuing his nephew Lot after enemy kings took him captive in a war. By now Abram had wealth, respect, a name people knew. What he didn’t have was a child. Years had gone by since the promise was first spoken, and both he and his wife Sarai were old.
That’s the moment God spoke to him again. And this time Abram said what he’d clearly been thinking for a while — that without a son, his servant would end up inheriting everything he owned. God took him outside, pointed up at the sky, and told him to count the stars if he could — that’s how many descendants he’d have. Abram believed him. That was it. No task completed, no proof required — just belief, and God counted that belief as righteousness.
What God Actually Did
Here’s how the Bible tells it. One night the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” Abram answered honestly — “Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus.” God corrected him: his heir wouldn’t be a servant, but a son born to him. Then He led Abram outside and told him to look up and count the stars, if that was even possible — “so shall thy seed be.” Abram believed the LORD, and it was counted to him for righteousness.
What followed was a covenant ceremony — animals brought and divided according to the custom of the time, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passing between the pieces while Abram watched. That was how a binding promise was sealed in that era. God also told him plainly that his descendants would spend four hundred years as foreigners in another land before returning to claim what was promised. None of this was vague. It was a real commitment, laid out with real specifics.
What This Verse Teaches Us
1. Faith means trusting God’s word over what your eyes are telling you. Abram could see his own age, his wife’s age — the math didn’t work. He believed anyway, not because the evidence changed, but because he chose to weigh God’s word more heavily than what looked obvious.
2. This is righteousness earned through belief, not through effort. This is the first time the Bible states it this directly — a person made right before God not by what they do, but by what they trust. Everything the rest of Scripture builds on this idea starts right here.
3. The promise was built to be impossible without God. Nobody counts the stars. Nobody creates them. God picked that image on purpose, so Abram would have nowhere to stand except on God’s ability, not his own.
4. Faith isn’t a single decision — it’s something you keep choosing. Abram believed here, and still doubted later. He and Sarai eventually tried to force the promise into existence their own way. Faith was never about getting it perfect. It was about coming back to trust, again and again.
A Modern Example
David and Rachel had been married nine years, and not one of those years had them give up on having a child. On this particular afternoon they were walking out of a hospital in Denver, a fresh report in hand — and the bill for this round of treatment tucked in with it. Once they were in the car, Rachel finally let herself cry. “You heard what he said, right? Odds are low again. We’re out of savings — I’m going to have to ask my mom for money.” David’s hands tightened on the wheel. “I know. I’ve already used two sick days this month. You saw my manager’s face last time.” Exhaustion and frustration were both in his voice, tangled together.
A few weeks later their friend Michael stopped by, and they told him everything — the money, the pressure at work, the relatives who kept asking about the house, about “settling down.” “We pray, we ask, and nothing moves,” Rachel said. “It feels like every part of our life is stuck at once.” Michael sat with that for a moment before answering. “You know Abram’s story? He waited years too — thought he’d never have a son, thought his whole life had stalled out. But what God told him never changed. It might look like He’s slow. That doesn’t mean He’s forgotten.” Something in that landed differently than the usual comfort people offered.
After that conversation, something shifted. David and Rachel stopped tracking other people’s kids, other people’s houses, other people’s promotions. David had an honest conversation with his manager about easing up the workload. Rachel built an actual budget for treatment costs and stopped borrowing. None of this fixed things overnight — Rachel still had nights where she cried, David still had moments where his frustration went straight at God, at their bank account, at the whole situation. But year after year, something in them held steady instead of breaking. The waiting didn’t destroy them. If anything, it made their trust more solid. They started being the ones other couples in the same spot came to for comfort.
God works out justice and does what’s right on His own schedule, and He doesn’t leave people permanently stranded — that’s not just a nice line, it’s something the Bible backs up from start to finish. A delay isn’t proof of being forgotten. It’s just proof that His timing runs on a different clock than ours.
A Word of Caution
There’s a real risk hiding inside this promise — using the wait as an excuse to stop being responsible, or letting impatience push you toward the wrong shortcut. Abram and Sarai’s own story shows exactly how this goes wrong. Even after the promise was given, when the waiting got too heavy, Sarai handed her servant Hagar to Abram, hoping for a child through her instead. It may have looked normal by the standards of that time, but it left the family with conflict that lasted for generations.
The lesson isn’t subtle: forcing a promise open on your own terms, on your own timeline, tends to cost more than it saves. But the flip side matters just as much — “God will act in His own time” isn’t a license to sit back and do nothing. Faith isn’t passive. It’s staying responsible while trusting Him with the outcome.
What to Do
1. Get specific about what God has actually promised for your situation. A specific promise gives faith something solid to stand on — vague hope doesn’t hold up the same way.
2. Bring your doubts to God directly, the way Abram did. Faith that’s honest lasts longer. Doubt kept buried just eats away at you quietly from the inside.
3. Keep a record of what God has already done in your life. Just like the stars, past evidence becomes the foundation that future trust stands on.
4. Don’t force a shortcut just because you’re tired of waiting. The Hagar situation shows what that costs — quick relief now, deeper pain later.
5. Keep showing up responsibly while you wait. Faith doesn’t put your life on hold. It gives the waiting some shape and steadiness.
Conclusion
Does trusting God actually make a real difference? The Bible’s answer is yes — though that difference might not show up as a quick, visible fix. The waiting might not end soon. The pain might not fully disappear. How God chooses to fulfill a promise isn’t something anyone gets to predict in advance — for some it comes through a biological child, for others through adoption, for others in a shape nobody saw coming. But faith puts you in right standing with God, and it reminds you that you were never meant to carry an impossible situation entirely alone.
David and Rachel are still living inside that trust, one day at a time. Nobody knows yet how their story ends. But the look on their faces has changed — the despair that used to be there has settled into something steadier, quieter. Abram’s story says the same thing in a different way: God’s timing might feel delayed, but His word doesn’t move.
This is only one of the many times God has shown up, worked wonders, and kept His word throughout history. Read through our other Bible articles to see more of what He’s done. He worked in the past, and He’s working in your life right now, too. Invite Him in — you were never meant to walk through this alone. Start walking with God today.
To understand the full context of this verse, read Genesis chapter 15 for yourself in the Bible.