Trustworthiness
Genesis 12:10-20. God has lead Abram and all of his household (wife, nephew, servants, and livestock) on a 600 mile trek from Haran (Assyria) to Canaan (the land promised). Abram has now had three personal encounters with the Almighty God (Yahweh) and finds himself and family living peacefully in Canaan as foreigners. He is building altars in worship to God in plain sight as a form of evangelism and testimony to God. For a time, Abram has set up his tent between Ai and Bethel and is grazing his livestock in the pastures of the land. God has taken care of all of his needs to this time. God has shown Himself faithful to Abram.
A time of famine begins, and Abram witnesses his neighbors leaving for the fertile land of abundance in Egypt. Like I so often do, Abram seems to forget about God’s faithfulness and settles his thoughts on the circumstances around him. What should I do to keep food on the table? Where should I go for help? And how do I keep it all together? So, like all of the neighbors, off to Egypt they go.
Nearing the border, Abram remembers all that he has heard about the Egyptians. They are hard and take whatever they want, including beautiful women for Pharaoh. He instructs his beautiful wife, Sarai, to tell the border patrol that she is his sister, so it all goes well for him and they won’t kill him. So she does; and as a result, Sarai is taken for a wife to Pharaoh while Abram is given many valuable possessions (gold, silver, servants, livestock). Abram wins materially but loses his prized possession, his wife. God’s grace and trustworthiness are evident by the way He protects Sarai from being taken (sexually) by Pharaoh. She is returned to Abram, and they are escorted by soldiers with all that was given to him and all that was originally his. Abram is more wealthy now then when when he first arrived in Egypt. God grants three promises to Abram in spite of his faithlessness:
- He blessed him with fortune from Pharaoh
- He made his name great in the sight of the people in Egypt through the escort out of Egypt
- Through God’s evident presence with Abram, he was revered as a powerful man
Abram is an example of the way an ordinary person thinks and behaves. We all seem to see our situation and circumstance clearer than we see God’s faithfulness in our lives. Abram is the picture of a man who is trying to know and understand God’s ways but is living in a temporal world. In him God is showing us how to build faith through obedience. God never told Abram to leave Canaan; but even though he did, God was with him and protected him. So it is with us.