GodSprings - January 23, 2016

Promised But Do I Trust?

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.” Genesis 12:10-13 (NIV)

A television program preceding the 1988 Winter Olympics featured blind skiers being trained for slalom skiing, impossible as that sounds. Paired with sighted skiers, the blind skiers were taught on the flats how to make right and left turns. When that was mastered, they were taken to the slalom slope, where their sighted partners skied beside them shouting, "Left!" and "Right!" As they obeyed the commands, they were able to negotiate the course and cross the finish line, depending solely on the sighted skiers' word. It was either complete trust or catastrophe.

What a vivid picture of the Christian life! In this world, we are in reality blind about what course to take. We have a book filled with promise but do we trust them.

After Abraham received the promise, one of the first stories we read is of his failure to trust in God. A famine fell upon the land that Abraham inhabited, and he was forced to travel down to Egypt. Out of fear of what the Pharaoh might do, Abraham devised a half-lie saying that Sarah was his sister and not his wife (even though she was technically his half-sister). He did this to protect his own life and even benefited from his lie. But everything quickly imploded. Pharaoh and his leaders were inflicted by a disease and cast Abraham and his wife out of the land along with all their belongings.

God communicates two incredibly powerful truths in this short story. First, all of God’s chosen will make mistakes. Abraham certainly did, you will and I will for sure. If the Bible repeats any message, it’s that people will fail. You will at some point do something stupid or act out of fear, and the beautiful thing is – it’s okay. It can be okay because of the second truth God communicates through this tale: His promises will not fail.

Despite Abraham’s lack of faith, God didn’t just write him off. God stepped in, intervened, and got Abraham back onto the path he was supposed to be on. What’s crazy is that this isn’t even the last time Abraham pulls this trick. Eight chapters later we’ll see that this patriarch made the exact same mistake! 

The purpose of this story, and I believe the whole of Abraham’s life as well, is to give us hope. Hope and confidence that God’s patience is more powerful than our stumbles, and His love is as strong as we are fragile. It’s because of us that we often find our faces in the dirt. It’s because of God that we can dust ourselves off, stand back up, and carry on even stronger than we were before.