Genesis 20-21 Just How Faithful?

There’s something comforting about Abraham even though it wasn’t good:  He was just like us in that he, too, was susceptible to falling back into patterns of sin.  Once again, as he traveled into unknown territories, he feared for his own safety, thinking that others might kill him to take his wife.  That seems to me to show a lack of faith in God’s promise to protect and prosper him!

Abraham eventually had to face the consequences for one of his “lack of faith” moments.  His earlier attempt to “help God out” by agreeing with his wife to try to conceive the child of promise through her Egyptian handmaiden was now causing problems.  Ishmael was beginning to taunt Isaac, the son of the promise, and Sarah demanded that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away.  It’s hard to believe her attitude, since she was the one who suggested the solution in the first place!

The New Testament tells us that God credited Abraham’s faith to him as righteousness.  The part I stumble over is Abraham’s stumbling faith!  Yes, he had faith enough to go to the Promised Land.  But he was so human in seemingly forgetting that faith at times.  But God was more faithful and continued to watch over him and bless him and maintain the promised covenant.

That gives me hope!  I, too, have believed God and clung to what He’s told me, and I have found Him to be absolutely faithful.  I trust God and know He has His best planned for my life if I will simply believe and obey.  Yet I, too, find myself slipping into patterns of sin.  I get so put out with myself for my choices, willfully rebelling against the God who has done so much for me!  God does forgive me and He dusts me off and graciously allows me to start over.

Did Abraham feel that way?  I don’t believe it ever says.  But look how God still loved him and blessed him despite himself!  I suppose that’s where my hope comes from.

Father, thank You for showing the absolute truth about people in the Bible, so that they won’t appear better than they really were.  Help me to fully grasp that Your love for me is just as strong as Your love for them all those millennia ago.  You’re still in the business of making things new again!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford