Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 15 And 16

Stop after verse 6. Look at just what happened. God told Abram something that seemed impossible to him, yet Abram believed God. I have heard it said that faith is "believing God despite the evidence and then watching the evidence change." That's exactly what happened with Abraham, isn't it? The initial promise of an heir was given, and Abraham had numerous descendants. Check out Galatians 3:29 which says "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise."

There's a whole lot of future telling that God does with Abraham next. I never paid a whole lot of attention to it before, but he pretty much tells Abram -- "Your descendants are going to be slaves, then I'm going to judge the nation they're in, bring them out, and give them a bunch of stuff. Then I'm going to have them come back here and wipe out the people that live around here because they're wicked too -- and after 400 years, they're still going to be wicked. But you, you're going to die in peace." That's a whole lot to lay on a guy who's really old wife isn't pregnant yet with a promised heir.

I'm not a geography wizard, but I do recall hearing that not all the land God promised to Abraham's descendants was taken by the Israelites. There's a whole lot of failing to trust God in that I think. think of it this way -- if you're a baseball player and God promised you 3 home runs in the game, and all you do at bat is try to bunt, those home runs probably aren't going to happen. Why should they? You would have obviously not believed God's promises in the first place.

That said, there are some promises God obviously did not allow to be hindered by man's own stubborn and unbelieving heart -- all that stuff leading up to a savior who would take away the sins of the world especially!

On the topic of doubting God's promises, Sarai didn't seem to believe God's promises too well in chapter 16. She's thinking "Well, this child by me thing isn't working...hey Abe, go sleep with my servant." So what was going on in Abraham's head? Was he also not believing God's promises, or was he thinking with his lower brain more than his upper one in this case? Given my sins of the past and my weakness, I could get the whole "Hey my wife told me to go bonk the servant girl, and she had a good reason!" rationalization here. I'm not saying it wasn't sin, just saying I get how he could fall into it pretty easily.

Like how that whole plan backfires? "Hey that girl you slept with doesn't like me now!" "She's yours, deal with it." And then whatever Sarai does makes her run away. Broken relationships and tension lay all over the place here. That's pretty much what happens when we go off and do things our own way instead of God's way -- we break a bunch of stuff.

And what does God to in the middle of the mess? He steps in to get it worked out like a dad steps in between his fighting children to get things right again. He shows grace and mercy in spades here, restoring the relationships that got jacked up.