“Counted it to him”—the word ‘counted’ had many uses in Hebrew but it always included something that was the result of consideration, taking factors into account, analyzing or reckoning. It is the idea of adding up the results of elements so that you get the end total. He is Abram and God has just come to him in a vision and reemphasized and expanded on the earlier promises. Abram is now dialoguing with God about how can such things be. God gives him the example of the heavens God had created and Abram believes what God is saying. In that believing God then reckons it to Abram as righteousness.
Abram still does not understand the details and it will be years in the ‘coming to pass’ everything but God knows that Abram accepts what God has told Abram is real and that God will accomplish what God says. It is not a passive belief but an active participation, a living according to what God has said.
One of our modern dilemmas is the ‘seeing is believing’ philosophy. Your challenge each day is to put aside that mindset and ‘believe’ that what God says He will do in your life is Truth, that He will do what He says.