Genesis 12:10-20
If you have stepped out and answered God’s call to walk through this life by faith in Him, you will almost certainly have come to points when your trust has faltered. That was certainly the case for Abram. His journey with God involved testing times and in today’s passage his faith fell short.
The problem arose at a time of famine in Canaan. As God had led him to that land and promised to bless him there, the right thing for Abram to do would have been to stay where he was and trust God to provide the food they needed. Instead, Abram used his own natural understanding to evaluate the situation and made the decision to go to Egypt because there was grain there. That worldly decision led him into a moral dilemma and, once again, rather than consulting God, Abram did things in the way that seemed best to him.
Abram’s concern was that, because his wife Sarai was a beautiful and desirable woman, an Egyptian man might decide to kill him in order to take her as his wife. With that in mind he decided to pass her off his sister. It was not a total lie (Genesis 20:12) and he may have thought he was protecting her as well as himself. However, acting on the basis of fear, rather than putting his faith in God, led to big trouble when Sarai’s beauty caught the eye of the king and she was taken into his harem. Abram and Sarai now had all the food they could eat and many other material possessions too, but the woman whose destiny was to be the mother of the descendants that God had promised to Abraham was now trapped in Egypt as a concubine of the king. Only by the grace of God did they escape the situation and I am sure Abram was chastened and wiser when they finally made their way back towards Canaan.
It is easy, when we are faced with a problem, to fall into the trap of trying to sort it out by ourselves without reference to God. However, we need to realise that our understanding is limited and trusting in it is dangerous. As Proverbs 3:7 warns us: “Do not be wise in your own eyes”.
Like Abram, we often act hastily out of the fear that arises whenever we focus our attention on our problem rather than on the Lord. However, God is not thrown when problems arise. He is faithful, wise and all-powerful. He knows the end before the beginning. There is nothing that He cannot, or will not handle if we let Him do so. It is foolish to do things our way when He has promised to lead and guide us. It is far better to trust our lives into His hands.
Psalm 27:1 “The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?”
Abram’s experience shows that when we mess up God is always willing to rescue us, but things go so much better when we learn to trust Him in the first place.
Prayer
Father God,
I am sorry that I try so often to manage my life without listening to You. Thank you that You are patient with my mistakes, but please help me to learn to trust You more completely, to rest in Your wisdom, and to follow Your leading even when the path ahead seems uncertain. Strengthen my faith I pray so that I may walk confidently in Your promises.
Amen.
All references are from the NKJV unless specified otherwise.
Jill Partis
bearing-kingdom-fruit.com
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