You may feel you’re in an impossible situation. Maybe your marriage is on the brink of divorce. Maybe bankruptcy is right around the corner. Maybe your chronic illness has come to define every area of your life.

The situation may be out of your control, but it’s not out of God’s control.

That’s one lesson we can learn from the life of Abraham. God told 75-year-old Abraham to leave everything he knew and go to a land he had never seen (Genesis 12:4). And God also told Abraham that he would one day father a whole nation, even though he and his wife, Sarah, had no children and were quite old by then.

But Abraham believed God. Romans 4:17 says, “[Abraham] is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not” (NIV).

This verse gives the definition of a miracle: when God gives life to something that was dead or when he creates something out of nothing.

God can give life to a dead career, a dead marriage, dead dreams, and dead finances. And he can make something out of nothing.

Jesus said, “All things are possible for the one who believes” (Mark 9:23 NCV).

But it’s important to understand who Abraham believed in. He didn’t believe in himself. He didn’t believe in his feelings. He didn’t put his faith in faith, either. Romans 4:17 says Abraham believed in God.

The object of his faith was God—nothing else.

I believe in positive thinking, but positive thinking and faith are not the same. Positive thinking only works when you have control over the situation. It’s worthless if the situation is out of your control. When you’re at a dead end, you need something more than a happy thought.

You need to place your faith in God because “what is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27 NIV).