Imagine yourself as Abram. You are brought up to worship the moon, but a God named Yahweh has appeared to you. He has told you to abandon your family and their gods, both contrary to deeply ingrained tribal customs, travel to a distant country and worship Him. This God makes promises to Abram who is both aged and childless that he will become the father of many nations. Really???
In spite of Abrams age and his attempts to assist God in His work, these promises take years and years to be fulfilled, yet Abram believes and God is pleased. Through Abraham, God starts to unveil his plan for correcting what went wrong in the world. He made promises to Abraham and his family that would benefit everyone in the world. These promises form the basis for the rest of the Bible.
As Aaron Brown pointed out at our morning meeting, sometimes God has to call us out from what we know, from our comfort zone, in order for us to be able to see what he is doing and wants to do in and through us. A few months back God led my youngest daughter, son-in-law, and children to move four hours away from everything and everyone they knew. I admit that on one hand I am very sad they are no longer in Bloomington but on the other hand I have seen spiritual growth and a thirst for God and Community which never would have happened if they had continued on here in Bloomington.
I have to admit that sometimes I am not as open to God’s plans as He would like me to be in spite of all the promises in the Bible that I can claim. But I very much want to be. I don’t want to think about the times that I wasn’t open and what God wanted for me that I may have missed out on. As Paul says in Phillipians 3:13-14… “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. I pray that I will have ears to hear and eyes to see God’s plan and the faith to follow and believe. I pray that God will be pleased.”
Take a moment to think about one way or one time in which God has been faithful to you or your family. Think of what God has promised you through the New Testament and how he has fulfilled any of those promises. We like Abram have received many promises from God. Like Abram we have seen some fulfilled but we must wait to see others fulfilled. Prayers have been answered, yet some we may be still waiting on. Abram depended on God’s record of faithfulness day to day to sustain his faith that other promises would someday be fulfilled. God encourages Abraham’s faith along the way so that we, like Abraham might respond in the critical moments in faith to his promises. Are you seeing God’s faithfulness day to day?