Abram looked at world-based facts, and he was confused, doubtful, and afraid. We noted yesterday that God’s first words to him were, “Do not be afraid.” Obviously, Abram was afraid and anxious in the long waiting time in which he had not children. Satan used the same technique he had applied in his conversation with Eve and Adam in the Garden, asking questions leading to doubting God’s word as truth. Satan worked in Abram’s mind, “Do you really believe that God will do what he says? Do you see any evidence of it?” Abram spent time thinking, comparing God’s promises to what he could see, and he couldn’t see that what God had promised him was happening.

However God’s words interjected into the impossible and trumped the action. Abram needed to develop and embrace God’s word in FAITH. As he waited, his faith was grown and strengthened.

SET THE SCENE

Visions are different from dreams—you don’t need to be asleep to experience them. They are a more aggressive form of communication from God than dreams and are typically given to prophets with messages to be delivered to the people.

MY SCENE ECHOES ABRAM’S VISION

COMING ALIVE: GOD, ABRAM, SARAI

GOD

• God sees a much bigger picture than we mere humans see. He is not confined by time, space, or being stuck on or in Himself. He reveals the past and the future to Abram through a vision, not only for himself, but for all his descendants.
• God was not offended by Abram’s questions, but assures Him that he will have a son of his own, from his own body.
• God is a gift giver and pours His blessings on His people.
• God enters into a covenant with Abram, not because Abram asked for one, but as another way to explain to Abram in a way he could understand: “This is my promise, and I will never break my promise.”

ABRAM

• Essentially, Abram asked God to “prove it. You say all these things, but I can’t see how they can possibly be true.” God answered, and in verse 6 the Bible tells us that Abram believed God and His promises to be true, for him and for his descendants. Yet, even as he believed, he asked to be shown, be assured of this truth. (Don’t we all do this?)
• Abram, once again, followed God’s specific directions to the letter.
• What does Abram sleep and the heavy dread that fell on him as he slept mean? I don’t know, but in my life when I have spent a day doing the things I believe God is calling me to do and have felt attacked, these foreboding attacks seem to redouble their effect as I fall into sleep. Abram experienced this heavy dread, and God came with a light to walk down the bloody path between the carcasses. It feels like reassurance, “You don’t have to be afraid. I’m here; I’m always here as you have seen in your life already. I am God, and I am always with you—in the good times and the bad—I’ll be before you, beside you, and behind you. You are my child.”

SARAI

• I couldn’t help but wonder how much Sarai and Abram talked about this in conversation. Abram was reassured that it he would have a “child from his body,” but Sarai wasn’t given this assurance.
• How did Sarai feel about this? Did her belief that Abram would reject her for another woman who could bear children precipitate her next actions?

I was looking for a song I used to sing (that I still sing in the middle of the night when anxiety wakes me), “Who can separate me from the Love of God?” However, without the name of the composer in my memory banks, I couldn’t find it to share with you. Though I’m not a fluent word-by-word memorizer, when they are in a song, the music brings the words along with it.

Reminds me of a pun:
I always wanted to be a Gregorian monk,
but I never got the chants.

SONG OF THE WEEK