You know, usually it's 15:1 that gets the attention in this first paragraph: "...the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: 'Don't be afraid, Abram. I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward.'" Spectacular, right? God speaks to a man with reassurance and divine promise of protection and blessing. Wow!
But Abram sounds a bit whiny. And, a bit forgetting to Whom he is speaking. Take his response apart:
"Lord GOD"--first, Abram, you've just addressed him as Almighty, Eternal, All-powerful YHWH, which should suffice to contradict your next phrase:
"what can You give me"--! What can You GIVE ME? Really, Abram? "Lord GOD, what can You give me..?"! Let's start with the breath in your lungs and work outward to, oh, sun/moon/stars, etc. I wasn't aware God had any limits to His provision for all the things that make our lives on this planet work.
"since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?"--oh, I see now, Abram. You look around at your circumstances and think God is defined by them. We've all been there, buddy. I can be there today in less than half a heartbeat. God gave you some pretty amazing promises, but right now your life doesn't look anything like them. You don't have any kids, for one thing, and yet God comes and basically says to you, 'Hey, don't be bummed out! It's gonna be so great!" I could tell you my circumstances that look nothing like God's promises to me, if you were hanging out on my living room couch right now. And I get it: your situation looked impossible. I've told God about how impossible my situation is alongside His promises too.
I'm starting to track with you, my friend.
"Look, You have given me no..." See, as much as I want to gape my jaws at this seeming audacity (who in his right mind says to God, 'Look here now..."?!), I get this too. All you see is what God hasn't seen to give you YET. You see the absence, not the potential. You see only what God hasn't given instead of all He has (like, protection in foreign lands, wealth, and victory against four kings and their armies just a few verses ago). If He can do all that, He can give you a child, too. Just because He hasn't yet doesn't mean He won't. Have to admit, I have an unfair advantage: I know the rest of your story, so I can pretty glibly tell you not to give up; it's harder to tell myself the same. I can also look at what God hasn't given me YET.
"offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir." Oh, Abram, we're really so much the same. We look at our lives and assume our current ingredients are all He has to work with. You thought Eliezer would have to be your heir because he was the only logical person you saw in your circle. It's like when a couple thousand years from you, Jesus will look at a little boy and a couple of disciples with fish and pita bread in their hands asking how can this feed 5,000 people? As if He has no other tricks in His bag for them...just like you think God has no other tricks in His bag for you. And (hanging my head), yep...just like me.
What's the really cool thing about how God answered your response, Abram? Yes, exactly! That He took you by the hand, walked you outside, showed you that sky and those stars that He'd already given you...and told you the story again of who you're gonna be--He promises. And you believed, and God counted it to you as righteousness. Believing Him that day saved your soul--and preached to Paul on the other side of the Bible from where your story is found.
Hey, let's go over here and look at the plaque on your wall, the one you got when you and Sarah were inducted into the Hall of Faith:
"By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went out to a place he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
By faith even Sarah herself, when she was unable to have children, received power to conceive offspring, even though she was past the age, since she considered that the One who had promised was faithful. Therefore from one man—in fact, from one as good as dead—came offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as innumerable as the grains of sand by the seashore." Hebrews 11:8-12
Abram, I kind of wanted to be upset with you when I read this passage this morning. To be honest, you sounded kind of sassy. But after sitting with you and getting inside your head a bit, I realize you're just plain folks. We all pass through seasons of this-is-all-I-can-see while we wait for what God says is coming.
I think our answer should be the same as yours: listen to God tell the story again, and--just believe it one more time.
No comments:
Post a Comment