In Genesis 15, Abram (he hasn’t been renamed yet) meets with the living God. The LORD tells him not to be afraid, he will be his shield and his reward. In effect God is reiterating his promise to bless Abram. He will protect him and provide for him.
Abram’s response is a question, along the lines of “What’s the point. Anything you bless me with now will just be passed on to my household steward.” The Lord’s response is to insist that no, he will not pass on his inheritance to a servant in his household. God’s promise to him is real, it will be an actual flesh and blood descendent. God isn’t going to fudge that and so Abram doesn’t need to either.
Then God shows him the night skly. Unlike modern day Birmingham it was unaffected by light pollution. So, Abram sees the heavens teaming with the light of thousands upon thousands of stars.
“Try to count them Abram”
“I can’t”
“Yes, that’s the point. That’s what your descendants are going to be like.”
Abram’s inheritance is going to be his heirs. God’s provisions will be a people, will be descendants. In fact, he is promised “offspring” which Paul in Galatians will emphasise is singular. It’s at this point that we are told:
“Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness”[1]
So, what was I specifically that Abraham was trusting God for? What was he believing? Well, I think we have already been told what it is in the preceding verses. Abraham is trusting God about the specific things he has promised him. He’s trusting God that He is really going to give him offspring and that the descendants and descendant will really be his, not through someone in his wider household.
Abraham is believing God’s promise. Now, he might not have known at this stage the full extent of how that promise would be fulfilled but he is at least believing in it as far as it has been revealed to him. This means that Abraham is believing in the promise of a specific offspring. He is trusting in the promise of Jesus.
I think this is so helpful to us when we think about what it means to have faith and to trust in God’s promises. Sometimes we can feel devastated because we think that God has not kept a promise. However, in those cases, when we look carefully, we realise that God hadn’t promised that specific thing. We cannot resent God for breaking promises he never made.
So what do we do when we think that God might have promised something such as a new job, the right house, marriage, children, healing, church growth, etc? Well I believe it is right to be trusting God for those things recognising that we may have misheard or misunderstood. What is crucial is that we trust him for the one sure and certain promise that we know is infallibly true. God has promised us Jesus -and all that this means for new life forgiveness of sin and life in his presence for ever.
If we trust the big, certain promise then we can have a healthy outlook on those smaller and lfallible promises. If we receive those things, great. If we don’t and we got it wrong then there’s no loss of identity, no loss of face and no loss of blessing in Christ.
[1] Genesis 15:6.
Faithroots 