And so this aging Abram launched out on a life of faith that was forever to change the thought-forms and culture of the world until the end of time. Billions of men and women throughout the ages have learned the way of trust from him. Today over half the earth’s population counts Abram as their spiritual father. Yet it all began in the mind of one man who did not “despise the day of small things” (cf. Zech. 4:10) because he believed in “the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth” (Gen. 14:22). What a strange figure of oriental mystery he must have appeared!
Isolated from the crowd by enormous wealth and in possession of a peculiar vision, his relatives may have sensed in him the loneliness of the great (Gen. 12:5; 13:2) even though he was leaving with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, hundreds of trained servants and a stunning mass of property (Gen. 12:5; 13:2; cf. 14:14) to pursue a bizarre odyssey of the mind. Bizarre?
Those relatives were never to know the half. There is nothing romantic about faith. It is nice having believed. It is not always nice believing. Faith is simple to conceive but difficult to practice because it cuts across every natural inclination of the heart and every perception of the seeing world. Time would come when Abram’s gilded life would feel the long reach of the dark fingers of doubt, making his wealth and power seem as nothing before the demands of faith.
At first the promise that all the families of the earth would be blessed through his descendants (Gen. 12:3, 7) probably stirred a renewed friskiness in Abram. “Well then, there’s life in this old dog yet!” he might well have thought. “So Sarai is not barren after all!” he may have reasoned. Surely the long-held resignation to a childless marriage was rapidly fading; the embarrassment of no natural heir, passing as a dream. Of course now, Sarai would need a little convincing…
It’s unimaginable that Abram would sit around waiting for a supernatural conception. Visionary he may have been; unpractical he was not. Almost every account of his life shows that Abram, with his wealth and power, was used to taking matters into his own hands (e.g. Gen. 12:10–20; 14:13–16; 16:1–4). This business of having a child needed his very personal attention! And, according to God, he was, it seemed, up to it. But now, this little matter of Sarai…understandably, she lacked confidence in her body’s performance.
After 65 years she was still infertile. Her record was so dismal that she was later to hand the job over to someone else (Gen. 16:1, 2) until finally hope fizzled into cynicism (Gen. 18:10–15). But that was later. This was now. Could Abram convince her of the plan to become intimate again, to hope in their ability to have children, after all? This influential leader who, no doubt, could persuade men with the authority of a look must surely have summoned his most gentle, romantic arts to win over disheartened Sarai. Perhaps she was more charmed than convinced, and may only have agreed to give the promise of God a trial run. The chosen night, most likely, was awkward for the pair.
Maybe Sarai was shy after so long, and Abram unsure of himself. But the act—perhaps more compulsory than passionate—was performed, and they waited through the months, going about their daily business in their new land, fearful and expectant, probably unsure of which was which…But the months went by and nothing happened…no morning sickness, no conception. It must have begun to dawn on them that this was not going to be a simple matter.
Again they tried…and again. Abram, possibly wondering whether the problem was his, might have begun to incorporate into his daily regime the sexual health techniques and herbal treatments of the day, as he probably had done before when Sarai had had difficulty conceiving. Meanwhile, faith was butting up against tense situations in the land of promise.
Launching out on a life of faith doesn’t always mean that circumstances automatically improve. Indeed, they often get worse. Abram and his entourage had by now traveled through a large portion of the land. War-like (Gen. 14:1–9) Canaanites were everywhere (Gen. 12:6). The sight must have unnerved Abram for the Lord appeared to him again, affirming that God would give the land to Abram’s descendants. And here we get the first hint of how faith works. The psychological meaning of the revelation is inescapable. Vision meets faith planted in the heart of man by God when the evidences of the senses are completely to the contrary. When Abram set up an altar to the Lord Who had appeared to him (Gen. 12:7) his heart was, in effect, saying, “Though this land is filled with pagans, I praise you, Lord that you are its King, and you have given it to me and my descendants.” But there was more in the dubious Promised Land.
If Canaanites were too prolific, food was too sparse. Famine blighted the fields (Gen. 12:10) so severely that Abram had to make the torturous decision to relocate his massive company to Egypt. The arduous trek might well have rubbed the final, glossy vestige off the faith-life. And, for that matter, was he relocating to Egypt to find food or leaving the Promised Land because he couldn’t quite trust that God could supply him with enough there? Uncertainty about his motive must have shadowed his mind. But what is a man to do in such a situation: take action or wait? Questions…questions! Then came Egypt, and Abram committed a blooper with consequences that would have made a hole to disappear into a far more desirable option.
When Abram’s household of somewhere around five hundred members (cf. Gen. 14:14) turned up on Egypt’s doorstep along with all their property and livestock, it would have been hard not to notice; equally hard not to notice Abram’s wife, Sarai. She was beautiful. With good reason, Abram feared that unscrupulous Egyptians, assuming her to be his wife, might easily arrange to have him dispatched in order to carry her off (Gen. 12:11, 12). Abram asked his wife if she’d be willing to call herself his sister, in order to save himself while still, of course, protecting her as his sister. She was, in fact, his half-sister, but also his wife (Gen. 20:12), a half-truth with potentially disastrous consequences, for others unknown to Abram, stood silently in the wings.
Men of the court, always on the look-out for a treat for the royal despot in order to secure their own heads, noticed this beautiful woman in the presence of Egypt’s prestigious guest. They spoke well of her to Pharaoh (Gen. 12:14, 15). It wasn’t long before officials were at the door, presumably their sugary politeness coating an unnerving, sinister presence, and putting to Abram an offer he was in no position to refuse: that Sarai be taken into the royal house of Pharaoh.
This was something Abram could not have thought of. A cold brush of horror must have swept his face. Attempting to save his own life, he had jeopardized Sarai’s safety. He was trapped. To explain that she was in fact his wife would put him in the position of husband again, which could lead to his clandestine disappearance at the hands of the court’s secret police. But to refuse the monarch’s request for his “sister” could lead to the death of them both in a similar manner. In searing anguish of heart, no doubt, Abram watches his brave wife depart with the courtiers to the palace. And in tawdry return, he is given cattle and slaves for the favor (Gen. 12:15, 16). But God was on the watch…
Not long after Sarai arrived at the palace Pharaoh and his household came down with plagues. Instantly intuiting a connection with Sarai, he found she was Abram’s wife, not his sister. He summoned Abram. This pagan king confronted the man of God with his lie (Gen. 12:17–19). With words full of contempt, he says, “Now then, here is your wife, take her and go” (Gen. 12:19). Pharaoh orders his men to escort him out of the land, with his wife and all that belonged to him (Gen. 12:20). Poor, dignified Abram: utterly humiliated. As he left he was probably deeply troubled by this calamity in that he did full circle and returned to the place where he’d started from, as men often do when they meet with defeat.
And here Vision and faith meet again. The Lord was stirring him still to believe, in spite of his failure. He had built an altar there before, at Bethel, and having returned to it, he responds to the stirring by calling upon the Lord (Gen. 13:3, 4; cf. 12:8). What might he have said? “I dishonored you, Lord, and shamed myself and my family. Yet, Lord, I continue to believe Your merciful promise that I will inherit the land.” And, perhaps, with renewed commitment, now that his wife is back home, Abram makes love to Sarai, and they wait. Yet still Sarai does not become pregnant.
Ah, then the in-laws…
If it’s not one thing, it’s another. We do not know why Abram brought Lot, his brother’s son, with him out of his father’s house. Perhaps Abram thought he might become his heir. Or maybe Lot was in it for the adventure. Whatever the reason, tensions built between them both. Lot was wealthy too, presumably also sharing in the inheritance of his grandfather, Abram’s father. In fact wealth was getting in the way of their relationship. The land, perhaps still recovering from the famine, could not sustain both households. Arguments broke out between Lot’s herdsmen and Abram’s, probably over water. It’s highly likely that this was hard on Abram, considering the support God gave to his faith immediately afterwards.
But first Abram, ever mindful of God’s promise that all the land had been given to him, must have felt the magnanimity of heart to offer first pick of it to Lot (Gen. 13:6–9). Lot grabbed it and took off east to land lush like Eden (Gen. 13:10, 11) while Abram settled in bleak Canaan (Gen. 13:12). With this large-hearted man, it may not have been the loss of land that hurt, but the pain at noticing an emerging, grasping tendency in Lot. And Abram was now bereft of one whom he most likely had developed affectionate, father-feelings towards. On top of that, did he wonder how his descendents were going to populate the land, when his clan had just been lopped in half? But then came that support.
We see Abram, confused, looking past the ground at his feet, wondering about the meaning of these recent events, feeling the loss, questioning. And in that moment Vision and faith meet, and Abram experiences the comforting presence of God urging him to lift his head up and look around. “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are”, He says, “northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can be numbered.” And as if Abram would sit there gazing about forever, the Lord nudges him, “Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you” (Gen. 13:14–17). In the darkness of his circumstances faith mingles with the vision of God for him and finds courage. “I’m going to walk everywhere! I believe God! He has given it all to me!” How could he not have picked up a handful of dust and let it pour through his fingers, “My children’s children will be as these particles of dust!”?
With certainty renewed Abram may have thought this was surely the moment, and arranged another romantic evening with his wife, had a special dinner, prepared with sweet wine and music, and made love to Sarai in the softness of the night. But still Sarai did not conceive.
And still more trouble was brewing…
War broke out. The words, “Man is born for trouble as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7) were not Abram’s, but they certainly could have been. Five regional kings ranged against a coalition of four others in an attempt to throw off their twelve-year rule. Battle ensued in the valley of Siddim, resulting in the defeat of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Both cities were looted. Lot, having grabbed for the best and now living in Sodom, became part of the loot and was carried off with all he had (Gen. 14:1–12). But a fugitive escaped to tell Abram (Gen. 14:13). When the news reached him, there was no hesitation in his concern for his nephew.
He gathered three hundred and eighteen of his trained men (Gen. 14:14) and under cover of darkness carried out a swift commando raid that secured Lot’s freedom, along with all the people and possessions with him (Gen. 14:14–16). Abram’s military strategy led to a complete rout of the four kings (Gen. 14:17). The flush after this lightning strike might have led Abram to the delusion that military conquest was the way the Promised Land would be won, and he might have given thought to strengthening his standing army for future operations. But in the light of the interchange between God and Abram soon after the war, this faulty thinking, if it existed at all, must have had the downside of an emerging, slow-simmering fear over the fragility and tenuousness of his life.
Who knows? He might have been only a wing’s breadth from death in that commando strike! And now he was exposed to the possibility of military retaliation. How could he afford to take risks like that when he had not yet given Sarai the child of the inheritance?! Once again, Vision met faith.
A pattern is beginning to emerge. The Lord God, Keeper of the Promise, always stirs faith in the mind that is met with darkness and fear; guilt and shame—or overconfidence: “Do not fear, Abram. I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great” (Gen. 15:1). These words from God indicate that Abram was indeed afraid and felt himself defenseless. And this time he feels so insecure that he is resisting the comfort.
Though the Vision is stirring the faith, Abram’s conflict is near to stifling it. He wants to believe while deeply unsettled by doubt. Clearly, events have shaken him. The risks of war have made the birth of a child more urgent. “O Lord God, what will you give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” (Gen. 15:2). This man, a Bill Gates of the ancient east, is beginning to see that he is in need of a gift for which all his wealth and power are absurdly irrelevant. God knows that the couple has been trying for probably nine long years now. Childlessness, hassles in the Promised Land, the vicissitudes of war and the inexorable encroachment of old age, all serve to build his sense of frustration and powerlessness. In a tone of blaming, he whines out a half-hearted, second-rate solution, “Since you have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir” (Gen. 15:3). But God is gentle and direct.
God knows Abram’s struggle. With no rebuke in His words, the Lord simply brings faith back into focus, “This man will not be your heir; but one who shall come forth from your body, he shall be your heir” (Gen. 15:4). And then, sweetly tender, “the Lord Most High, possessor of heaven and earth” (Gen. 14:22) “took him outside” and said to Abram, “count the stars if you are able to count them…so shall your descendents be” (Gen. 15:5). The Vision of God is now attempting to storm Abram’s growing doubt.
Abram stares up at the myriads of miniature beacons, flickering in the vast, ancient blackness. The largeness of God, the Creator, Who has become Abram’s intimate Friend, must have made the factious wars of the Canaanites seem like a drop in the bucket (cf. Isa. 40:15) and his age as if he’d just been born, before the timeless patterns in the sky. Couldn’t the Creator of all this give him the gift of a son? Vision was once again converging on faith. The balance was tipping. Abram, no longer resisting hope, was now resisting doubt. A victory of faith was about to be won.
“Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). From the specific words God gave to Abram, and from the fact that Abram had come to believe those words of God, we may know what was now in his heart: My God is treating me as if I, of all people, were a righteous man! I refuse, then, to fear these warring Canaanites! I believe my God will protect me like a shield! Though danger is all around, and I walk with Death, I praise the Creator of these stars that He will protect me and reward my faith. As old as I am, I will not accept a second-rate solution. I will believe that my own body will yet produce a son! My descendants will be as countless as these stars and they will possess this land! Yet even now something astonishing happens.
Is there a time-gap between verses six and seven of Genesis, chapter fifteen? We don’t know, but there may be, in that God introduces Himself to Abram again in verse seven as if this was another meeting, and in that Abram, based on his response to Him, is in quite a different state of mind from the faith-mind recorded in verse six. He has now backtracked into doubt (Gen. 15:8)! What could have transpired after all his assurance of faith? We read nothing of any further wars, famines or family setbacks that could have thrown him off kilter. But there is one very private thing that has the power to throw any man. It also happens to be the one central thing.
Since Abram had now become convicted through faith of a very specific detail of the Promise—that his heir would come from his own body (Gen. 15:4)—he most likely would be encouraged about his sexual potency and may have spent intimate nights of love-making with Sarai. Yet in spite of his revived hopes, in spite of his sense of the bright rising of a returning masculine vigor, anxious months would have gone by, and Sarai’s conception would have seemed as far away as the stars that had promised so much…
If that in fact was the case, verses six and seven would mean that the Lord, ever the Great Encourager Of Men, was coming to Abram to lift his heart again: “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur…to give you this land to possess it” (Gen. 15:7).
But if not, and there is no lapse of time between verses six and seven, then Abram, having grasped hold of faith, having been awed by the stars and riveted by the conviction that a child would come forth from his own body, is now reminded by God (now that faith has been revitalized) that this is what his long journey is all about: “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur…to give you this land to possess it” (Gen. 15:7). And at that very instant,—at the instant of believing, at the instant of being encouraged by God—staggeringly, Abram’s faith would have again been stunned by the bigness of it all so that he was teetering on the brink.
Whether then, this new crisis of faith happens straight after having believed God’s promise in reference to the stars, or it takes place a little later, after he and Sarai had tried and failed yet again to have a child, Abram, nevertheless, slipping towards the natural mind’s mental revolt against faith, cries out: “O Lord God! How shall I know that I shall possess it?” (Gen. 15:8). And “The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth [Who] does not become weary or tired” (cf. Isa. 40:28) stoops down once more to support His trembling friend.
In the Vision of his mind (cf. Gen. 15:1) Abram experiences God telling him to bring to Him several three-year-old animals and cut them in two, laying each half opposite the other (Gen. 15:9, 10). This procedure would have been familiar to Abram as a solemn act of covenant in the manner of the culture of the ancient East. Men agreeing upon something would pass between the divided carcasses implying that a failure to keep their promise to each other would mean that they would suffer the same fate as those animals. But there must be something deeply unsettling to Abram in the idea of a covenant.
He had asked God how he might know that he would possess the land. Surely the Lord wasn’t going to assure Abram of the strength of His promise by having him enter into a covenant with God that would be as tenuous as its weakest human link—Abram himself? Abram was already unnerved by his up-and-down faith, which was the reason why he had asked how he might know that he would possess the land in the first place. What kind of assurance can this be if he is to be part of the bargain? But God is about to show him that this is a covenant with a profound difference.
Purposefully God delays appearing for the ceremony. Abram waits around chasing birds of prey off the carcasses until nightfall (Gen. 15:11). This alone, one would think, gives him a sense of his helplessness in that he is hardly able to take care of the covenant sacrifices before even the ceremony was performed. But far more heart-stopping and far-reaching is what is about to happen.
Exhausted, Abram falls into a sleep (Gen. 15:12) that grips him to the depths with a massive, terrifying darkness (Gen. 15:12). The meaning of this rest of horror, impressed upon Abram’s mind by God, would surely overwhelm his heart with an unspeakable foreboding, larger than anything he can imagine. Grieving Vision embraces aching faith as God reveals the truth, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years” (Gen. 15:13). There is the blood-passion of humanity flowing through this man’s veins (cf. James 5:17). His heart must be near to bursting with shock and anger and grief—the eternal groan, perhaps, of the saints of all ages who sense the unspeakable sorrow of mankind (cf. Rom. 8:18–27): Aaaahhhhh! No! No! The pity of it! The pity! The pity…Why? What promise is this!? My descendants born to misery!!? Why must it be like this? Must I bring children into this world to face such outrage? What worth is it! Rather my son be left in the Darkness of the Unborn than bring him into the gloom of outlandish suffering!…My descendants! How will they endure? Four hundred years! How can they endure! The horror! Lord! No! No! No! More than ever, Abram must be dreading the idea of covenant. How will his descendants be able to keep their part of the bargain while drained of hope in endless slavery and oppression? While his heart churns with the horror, the Lord, the Knower Of All Pain (cf. Isa. 63:9), gently brings a glimmer of hope.
He continues: “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve; and afterward they will come out with many possessions” (Gen. 15:14). God will be watching over them. He will set them free from their oppressors. He will prosper them afterwards. Yet whatever small comfort this might be to Abram, this night of terror could not have failed to leave an ineradicable scar on his soul.
He has been faced with the inscrutable mystery of God. Many times he had sensed God’s closeness; now he must sense His utter incomprehensibility. God gave no explanation of the suffering to come. His words simply acknowledged its serene inevitability while giving the assurance of ultimate deliverance. The Lord must surely know all this is hard for Abram to receive. He assures him that he himself will live long and die in peace (Gen. 15:15). But the comfort might well be short-lived since Abram is now possibly wary of God, or even fears Him. Thoughts that he never dare voice may be crossing his mind: Who is this God I follow? Why doesn’t He plan to prevent the suffering of my descendents? Doesn’t He have the power? Is He so far removed from us that He cannot feel the labor and sorrow of our brief earthly span (cf. Ps. 90:10)? And, why, one wonders, did God tell Abram of this bleak future in the first place?
The Lord was in the process of training faith in Abram’s heart by addressing his question, “Oh Lord God, how shall I know that I shall possess it?” (Gen. 15:8). Apparently to do this it was necessary to take Abram into His confidence as their later interchange over Sodom reveals (Gen. 18:16–33). God was making room in Abram’s faith for the embracing of the unavoidable suffering faith brings as it clashes with a world of Death. Without this embrace of the terrible side of faith, the soul would “shrink back to destruction” (Heb. 10:38, 39) and would assume that God had abandoned it. Abram must have continued to ponder the significance of the horrendous darkness as the sun sets and a more natural darkness envelops him (Gen. 15:17). And in the gloom the covenant different from any he has known is about to be transacted.
From the recesses of night Abram can make out a dull glow of cloudy fire ascending out of an oven. Without hands, a flaming torch, burning defiant in the otherwise mastering blackness, passes between the carcasses (Gen. 15:17). Abram senses the Lord, as the Torch of God makes its slow passage. But he is most certainly unable yet to take in the full encouragement of the sight because the moment he might well be dreading has arrived. How can he trust himself to enter into this covenant and keep his part of the bargain? If he has often doubted God, how much more himself? He has wavered so much already that it would seem to him highly improbable that his descendants will be able to hang on considering the devastation they will be going through. And now comes the moment of his part in the covenant. Nervously, and unsure of himself, Abram might have been waiting his turn to pass between the carcasses. And he waits…But, amazingly, before the fact sinks in, it’s all over.
He hears the voice of God establishing the covenant with him: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river Euphrates…” (Gen. 15:18–21). Yes, but where is Abram’s part? When does he get to be on stage? There is no, “If-you-will-believe-I-will-do-such-and-such”. There are no “ifs”, no conditions, no bargains. What kind of a covenant is this? Abram is in for another shock.
He suddenly has nothing to contribute to God’s plan. Not that he had anything to contribute to the plan in the first place, but the illusion feels good. Now before the flaming Torch it melts away, and without this delusional companion there is a sense of powerlessness, and that’s something that does not sit well with Abram. But that is precisely the reality the covenant is bringing him to. No wealth, no prowess, no sperm count can bring Abram to the destined goal—not even faith! Pondering painfully further into night, an unexpected, contrary emotion might be emerging as he settles into this one-sided nature of the covenant: an immediate sense of relief from believing. The pressure is off. God did not call for faith as Abram’s contribution to the covenant and that could mean only one thing: that faith does not come from Abram’s side as an act of will but from God’s side as a gift to his spirit. Faith is not something God requires but something God supplies. The Promise can never be received without faith, but it is never given without faith. Thus faith was not a condition for receiving the promise which Abram must provide; it was a means of receiving the promise which God provided. The impact of this unique covenant on Abram’s mind must have been stunning.
It could not have been an accident that the Lord revealed Himself as the only Keeper of the covenant at the very time when he told Abram that his descendants would be oppressed four hundred years. News that his progeny would have a future as devastating as this would generate such feelings of anguished helplessness in Abram that only the sole, keeping-power of God—without any human conditions—could hope to secure the Promise under such dire circumstances. But more: for Abram to be relieved of believing as a covenant bargain would ease his burden, and free him up, paradoxically, toward more trust.
His attention would shift away from himself. He would contemplate this generous, loving God. He would be nudged out of his newly acquired wariness of God and little by little towards reconciliation. He’d come to terms with suffering not from understanding it, but from accepting that God would be present with his children’s children in it. His thoughts might well be similar to David’s a thousand years later, “He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber not sleep” (Ps. 121:3). And thus, paradoxically, for Abram to be relieved of faith as a condition, creates faith as a result, for to make faith a condition leads to a concentration on the self, but when faith is a result it flows from concentration on the beauty of God.
Here is a man of whom God later said, “For I have chosen him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him” (Gen. 18:19). This could only be spoken of a man who had received from the hand of God such free and generous loving and blessing that He lived before him in delight, not servitude, and who, by his faith, must have had a heart that said, “I am going to bless the world just as I have been blessed. I am going to do righteously and justly to all nations just as God, in His mercy, has done righteously to me.” Only by a one-sided covenant that clearly showed that Abram was to live by faith alone before God without any works, could such a spirit of gratitude that delights to display God, have been developed in this man. “For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise” (Gal. 3:18). “For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Rom. 4:13). What a God is this! How could Abram not have sensed a certain whimsy in Him? Abram had asked, “Oh Lord God, how may I know that I shall possess” the land (Gen. 15:8)? And the Lord, instead of providing an answer to the question, raised two others—future suffering and the one-sided covenant—that made the answer to all of them the incontrovertible necessity of GOD ALONE THROUGH FAITH ALONE. From what the covenant said and what it meant, and as Vision met faith without any recorded resistance from Abram, we know what must have been in his mind, and for the first time his faith believes—as the words of the covenant indicate—that the Promise is no longer perceived as a future event, but as something already done by the God before whom all things are present (cf. Exod. 3:14):
I now believe that the Lord has given this land to me and my descendants. He alone keeps my faith, and will preserve the faith of all my children who do not resist believing. And though my descendants will suffer terribly, I believe God will watch over them and bring them through because the Lord is good. And I believe that it is better that they be born so that they give the gift of faith to this dark world, even though they suffer for it, than that they never be born at all and the world be left in endless darkness.
And so as Abram and Sarai come together to make love again, there is now a terrible beauty to their intimacy, knowing that faith carries with it a sadness in the peace of believing, and that the child to be born to them will be the genesis of historic suffering—yet also knowing that this child and all his descendants will be the unveiling of the Promise of God to a dying world. And once again they wait…
And once again, in spite of all their renewed hope, in spite of being more sure of God than ever, Sarai is still unable to conceive…
“Be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7). Abram received the Promise by faith without works. So do you.
1. Abram had a similar psychological make-up to yours. Read between the lines; it’s foolhardy not to. Dreadful mistakes are made if Abram isn’t allowed ordinary emotions. Faith was a struggle for him as much as it is for you. You are a saint for believing, just as he was, no matter how much trouble you are going through.
2. God renewed Abram’s faith always in the midst of trouble. No exception. Troubles are not an indication of God’s abandonment, but of the moment when He is renewing your faith.
3. When Paul says Abram doubted not (Rom. 4:20, 21) this is not an absolute statement. In the light of Genesis it means that he did not finally yield to doubt and that his faith overcame doubt. But the agony of doubt often tried to intrude into his faith as it tries to do with all men—including you.
4. Recovery from addictions is the same faith-process that Abram went through: being accounted righteous when you’re not; having your faith upheld by God, not yourself; recognizing that you already have the Promise even when you don’t see it, and acting by faith accordingly.
5. God is leading you to include suffering in your faith life, just as Abram learned to do. Don’t believe God is for you only when things are going well. He’s especially for you when they’re not.
6. “In the world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
That’s faith.
(To Be Continued)