My 3-year-old son had been praying for months about a specific desire of his heart. It was a toy, a “lifter with shifters,” as he described it to God. It was hard not to smile hearing him make this request in nearly every single prayer. He had discovered this toy in the back of a woodworking catalogue. It was not a toy he could purchase with his modest collection of coins, so my wife and I encouraged him to pray about it. That he did!

A few months passed, and we wanted to reward him for his recent good behavior. We decided to take him to the store to purchase the “lifter with shifters” that he was still praying about daily. My son sat on my lap as I checked the store website to make sure it was in stock at our location.

“Out of stock.”

I checked if we could order it online instead. “Out of stock.” It seemed the supply of this toy had vanished from the entire country. To me that was the end of the story.

To my son it was irrelevant. He did not seem to comprehend the gravity of “out of stock.” He fully expected God to answer those prayers. Sadly, he was more convinced than me that we could still go to the store and buy it. At this point, I myself had no ability to reward my son with this toy. It was at this same point that the God of miracles took over. What I thought was the end of the story turned into one of my greatest lessons in faith.

We needed to go to the store anyway, so we got in the car and started driving. Along the way, I tried my best to explain that “out of stock” meant there were none of these toys in the store for us to buy. He insisted that he had prayed about it. I encouraged him by saying that maybe the toy would be back in stock again in the future, but he should not expect to get one today since there were none to be had.

At the store, the thought came to mind about how the “in stock” label at a store website is often a cruel hoax. I would drive to a store believing the item to be there only to find an empty shelf. Store employees would search high and low and come back empty-handed. Maybe this time the website was wrong—in our favor. I decided to check again at the store’s computer kiosk. My son still eagerly anticipated locating and purchasing a “lifter with shifters.” But the store computers also showed that it was “out of stock.”

Having found the other items we came for, we went to the counter to pay and head home. As I was paying, I decided to ask the clerk about the toy. Maybe there was one somewhere in the back of the store that didn’t make it into the computer system. As I began to describe the toy, I glanced to the side.

There, sitting on a counter behind the clerk was a brand-new, unopened box containing a “lifter with shifters!” Trailing off in my description, I pointed at it.

“That’s it!”

I was amazed. How did it get there? Did someone else just return it? I quickly stopped wondering and asked if we could buy it. I knew how it got there. God heard all those prayers from a 3-year-old boy. In the end, God provided the toy! Seemingly out of nowhere, contrary to all the physical evidence I could see, the toy not only happened to be in the store but placed at the very till we would use! When we returned to our car in the parking lot, we thanked God for His miracle.

On the drive home, I couldn’t wait to relay the story to my wife! But I also felt corrected. How easy it was to believe what I could see instead of God’s promises. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”(Hebrews 11:1).

The physical evidence, what I could see, was “Out of Stock.” But in the Bible, God makes many promises I should have looked to instead. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights …” (James 1:17).

“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” (1 John 3:22).

Mr. Armstrong explained in The Plain Truth About Healing, “Faith has only to do with God’s Word! The one question is, Has God promised it in the Bible? If He has, then probabilities, possibilities, feelings, convictions, impressions, have nothing whatsoever to do with it. God has a thousand ways we know nothing of …. We don’t need to see how He is going to do it or even when!”

This is the kind of faith shown throughout Hebrews 11. We read that Noah “being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house …” (verse 7). Noah demonstrated how to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Noah did not walk by what he could see, which was likely hundreds of hot and dry sunny days. He walked by what he had not yet seen. He walked according to the word of God and His promises!

The problem is that it is natural for us to want to see the evidence first and then believe. We’ve all heard it said, “seeing is believing.” We want to be reassured with something we can physically see. Even great men of faith in the Bible sometimes desired to see physical evidence of God’s promises first. Gideon, for example, wanted God to show him a miracle before fully trusting that God would provide victory against an enemy army (Judges 6:36-40).

The disciple Thomas also wanted to see the evidence. The other disciples had seen Jesus Christ after his resurrection. When the other disciples told Thomas they had seen Christ, he responded, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). How often are we more like Thomas than Noah when it comes to faith?

The more we can learn to walk by faith and wholly trust God’s promises regardless of the physical circumstances, the visible evidence, the closer we will be to our Father and the more blessings we will experience.

Christ knew what Thomas had said to the other disciples. Eight days later, Christ appeared again. He showed Thomas the wounds from the nails and suggested he thrust his hand into His side. Christ desired to strengthen Thomas’ faith, saying, “be not faithless, but believing.” (verse 27). Then Christ made an amazing promise that we can all strive to emulate and be inspired by! “Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (verse 29).

The “lifter with shifters” is just a toy. My son is now 6, and he still plays with it occasionally, but to me it is a gift that is priceless. The lesson in faith that God taught me through that experience anchored me in God’s promises through some extremely challenging trials that came later.

Just as with Gideon and Thomas, God wants to strengthen our faith! God is looking for us to simply believe His words. Whether it is a man who knew Jesus Christ, a man who was facing an army, a man through whom God would save the human race or a father, or a 3-year-old boy, or anyone else, God waits, at the ready, to intervene, to perform supernatural miracles and to bless those that have not seen, and yet have believed!