(Written
by Sheila Gail Landgraf)
After
Abram had rescued Lot from his enemies, the Lord spoke to Abram again. He said “Do
not be afraid Abram. I am your shield,
your very great reward.”
This
could be translated as God saying “I am your sovereign and your reward from me
is great.”
Abram
had seen how God had defended him in battle.
He did not need reassurance of that.
He had been willing to follow God anywhere.
It was
that “I am your very great reward” part of the statement that Abram was perplexed
about. Was his reward from God just
going to be winning battles? God knew
Abram wanted a son of his own as an heir to his estate more than anything.
Had God
not promised this?
What
was the problem?
What
was taking so long?
So Abram brings this up to God in a very
respectful way, acknowledging the fact that God is sovereign and reminding him
that he had been promised children that had not been born yet. He asked God if Eliezer of Damascus would
inherit his estate in place of a son born to him. That is usually what happened when a man did
not have a son; a servant of his household would be named as heir.
God
once again assured Abram that Eliezer would not be his heir but a son from his
own flesh and blood would be his heir.
As He spoke with Abram, God told him to look up at the stars in the sky
and count them if he could.
As
Abram looked up at the stars that filled the sky God said to him that his
offspring would be like this. Abram must
have been astounded. He had already learned
they would be as many as the dust of the earth, now he was told his offspring
would be as many as the stars of the sky.
How was
this possible? He was already getting to
be an older man. Time was slipping away
so fast, but Abram believed God and it was counted to him for
righteousness.
How
many men would have believed such a thing at this point in their life? Abram did.
He was a man of great faith. He
truly lived out the definition of faith:
that is; faith being the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of
things not seen.
You
might view this trait of Abram as being extraordinary, yet it is very ordinary. Abram lived in the same type of radical world
that we are living in today, one of swirling cultural changes. Everyone wanted to experience the next big
thing – hence they went in search of supernatural things that often led them
into evil troubles. Take Sodom and
Gomorrah as an example. These people
thought they could change the order of God’s world simply by making all the
people around them think and act as they did.
They lived in unreality. They
could not accept the truth of God, that He created the universe and that He
created it a certain way and that certain creatures had certain functions for
certain reasons. It was God’s plan. Men often seek to outthink God and wind up
not thinking at all. This is the worst
form of idolatry, worship of self; the same type of worship that sent Lucifer
hurling from heaven. It is the one thing
that God detests the most.
Abram
on the other hand had accepted God’s reality and truth. He lived an ordinary life. He wasn’t trying to be extraordinary and to
seek thrills and adventures from the supernatural. Time and time again you will hear of his
extraordinary faith, but actually Abram had a natural, ordinary faith. That is all God wishes for any of us; just to
believe what He says is true and live before Him what you believe. It isn’t complicated and it doesn’t require great
fanfare.
Abram
lived with an uncanny appreciation of God in the commonplace. He did not seek out great quests from God; he
simply acknowledged God’s presence in everything around him and responded when God spoke to him. It was an every-day kind of faith. Far from low expectations or passivity; Abram
simply found joy in the ordinary.
He
went outside on the mountaintop and sat with God and appreciated the splendor
of the universe God had created. He didn’t
always do the talking in his prayers – he most often spent time listening.
And God spoke to him, just an ordinary man of faith worshipping in an ordinary way, and showed him blessings in all the ordinary things of his days – such as the dust of the earth and the stars in the sky.
And Abram believed and had a type of faith that God considered righteous and that is very likely one of the reasons why God chose Abram and made a covenant with him to be the father of many nations and the receiver of multiple blessings.
