Chapters 17 and 18 remind me that we serve a God who's ways are not our own. His master plan is something we don't always readily see, and even when he reveals it, we may not understand it. This is where faith comes in. We must have enough faith to follow God's instructions, trusting he is working it all out for the good. Abraham does just that. When his wife Sara heard that God had supposedly promised she would bare a son in her old age, she laughed at the thought. I love what the Gen 18:14 says,
"Is anything too hard for the Lord?"
What a slap in the face! One i think we all need, including myself. How many times do I get wrapped up in a situation or struggle that I feel there is no way it will work out. It just can't be done. Is anything too hard for the Lord? NO! So why must we always fret. Why do we still search as if He's not enough?
CH 18: This is a unique exchange between Abraham and God, one I find quite amusing. Abraham barters with God, trying to lower the price of God's mercy. After seeing nothing but wickedness in Sodom and Gomorrah, God was going to destroy it. However, Abraham made a deal that if he found ten righteous men, God would spare the city. The interesting thing is that if Abraham had just reached his own family, the city would be spared. Abraham, Sara, his son and the woman who bore him, his nephew Lot and his wife and children, as well as their extended family (such a sons-in-law). It was not as if Abraham had to find complete strangers. If only his family had been righteous before God, the city could have been spared. Interesting thought I think.
CH 19: This is the big scene in which Lot's wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt. Just a glance back at where she came from cost her everything God had set before her. Isn't that just like us? God gives us salvation, second chances, yet we still have a hard time letting go of the things he has told us to leave in the past.
CH 22: I have always been amazed by the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac. What a beautiful foreshadowing of the sacrifice that God would give by allowing his only son to die. Oh, what I would do to have the kind of faith that took. A song says, " I wonder how it must have felt. Abraham with knife in hand was poised to kill. But God in all his sovereignty had bigger plans, and just in time, he brought a ram. You were there, you were there in the midst of the unclear. You were there, you were there always. You were there when obedience seemed so out of reach, oh you were there. You were always there."
CH 28: God is speaking in verse 15, and I am so encouraged by His words,
"Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you."
You see, God has a plan, a great plan for each and every one of us. If we let him run the show, instead of trying to accomplish it by our own means, we are promised that He will be with us and finish the work he starts in us.
Loving this challenge, you should join us. Day 2 is in the books, and God is already blessing me tremendously!
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