Abraham and God's Promises

If you are a Christian, God has made you a promise. 

That promise is manifold. He will be your stronghold in times of trouble (Psalm 9:9), he will guide you and care for you like a shepherd (Psalm 23), and all for you will work together for good (Romans 8:28). These are things that he has promised, irrevocably, long ago. He's not going back on them; they're set in stone. And they're something you can cling to in the darkest days. 

But in the valley of the shadow of death, it can be hard to see your Shepherd. How can you be sure he's there? He's promised, but how can you be sure that the promise will be fulfilled? 

One good way to reassure yourself that God will, in fact, keep his promises, is to look back at times in the past where he's proven himself trustworthy. And a good example of trusting in God's promises even when it seems that there's no possible way for it to be fulfilled is Abraham. 

Abram was old. Sarai, his wife, was old—way too old to have kids. But despite that, they'd been chosen by God to fill a special role: to be the parents of a great nation, who would be God's people. And along with a new name change, their lives were transformed by the miraculous birth of a son. (Two sons, actually, but that's not relevant to the story.)

Isaac was the answer to a promise that God had made. And Abraham and Sarah were happy. They knew God kept his promises, because they'd seen it, and the promise was one that really shouldn't have been able to be kept. They had faith in God's power, because it had proven itself to them time and time again.

Then God came to Abraham with an astonishing command: "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering." (Genesis 22.)

What? 

Imagine what Abraham must have felt. Imagine the shock, the confusion, the horror at the idea of offering your own young son as a sacrificial lamb. Imagine the unwillingness you'd have felt to obey God's command. 

But Abraham remembered the promise: "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." (Genesis 21:12.) 

God had already told Abraham and Sarah that Isaac would be the line through which God's chosen people would come. The command didn't seem to go with that, but God would not retroactively switch the kingdom's future to go through Ishmael, or even another son that Abraham and Sarah would have. And so, Abraham did as God said. Because he trusted that God would fulfill his promise. 

You probably know how the rest of the story goes. Abraham and Isaac go up to the mountain, and the sacrifice almost takes place. But at the last second, God stops it, and provides a sacrificial ram to die in Isaac's stead. Abraham obeyed God, knowing that God wouldn't go back on his word—and the faith bore fruit. 

So if you think that God isn't keeping his promises to you, wait. Have faith, and pray. Because God will, and God is.


Comments

  1. Annabelle BatieFebruary 17, 2022 at 1:58 PM

    Wow, this is amazing! I can actually testify to God keeping his promises in my own life. About a year ago, my family and I were traveling around the US. It was fun at first, but it got old pretty fast mainly because I had zero friends. I became distrustful in God because I had been wanting friends and a nice house to settle down in for so long.

    Well, last summer, my family traveled to where we are now, and we felt like God was leading us here. So we settled down, and instantly I began to make friends. Now I can see that God really did keep his promise! I don't think I can every doubt God again after that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Emma ThrasherFebruary 17, 2022 at 4:31 PM

      Amen, and I'm so glad that you have that testimony! Answered prayer is sweet to see <3

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God - Iguazu Falls, Brazil

Image
I've had several experiences in my life that make me pause and think: "The heavens really do declare the glory of God." The first was the total solar eclipse of 2017. (Kind of hard to beat the sun being replaced by a black hole.) But visiting the Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil certainly comes close.  Getting to the falls was quite the process. Our whole group piled into the van and drove over the border from Paraguay to Brazil—they didn't check our passports for some reason, so it didn't take too long—and arrived at the Iguazu Falls National Park.  All we had to do then was take a taxi or bus up to the falls themselves. And, despite several transport mishaps (including a taxi driving one group back to Paraguay instead of to the falls by mistake), we made it to Iguazu.  Iguazu Falls is the largest waterfall system in the world. Though it isn't the highest, there are 275 waterfalls on the cliffs—and if you see it in person, the sight goes bey...
Read more

The Praiseworthy Project - 30 Days of Choosing What's Beautiful

Image
At the beginning of August, I decided to try an experiment. The experiment was pretty simple. For 30 days, I wouldn't consume a lot of the secular media that I enjoyed. It was during summer break, and I've been wasting a lot of my time on entertainment—and I wasn't being very careful about what kind of entertainment it was. Why did I do this? Well, because I wanted to see what would happen. My hypothesis was that the passive entertainment that we consume on a daily basis affects us more than we think. We read and watch so many things that aren't necessarily sinful but that aren't from a Christian perspective, and the ideas soak into our brain. I wondered how this affects us. And I wondered what would happen if I did something different. I called it the Praiseworthy Project after Philippians 4:8 – "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellenc...
Read more

Psalm 24 - The Promise of Sanctification

Image
In my Bible reading recently, I read Psalm 24. It's a wonderful psalm full of profound statements about God—that's kind of how the Bible is, actually—but what I didn't realize is that it also contains one of the sweetest of God's promises to us.  I thought I'd go over that promise today with you, so let's take a look at Psalm 24, and how it promises us sanctification.  (You can read Psalm 24 here before we start, or you can follow along with the verses that I've pasted below.)   Verses 1-2 - "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers."  Right away we see God's power displayed. God owns the earth—God made the earth. Nothing in nature is more powerful than the ocean, but God made the seas.  And he also owns every person. "Those who dwell therein"—he made us, and he is the divine author of our stories.  Verses 3-4 -...
Read more