Robust Yet Imperfect
SCRIPTURE
"Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation… 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him and Lot went with him” - Genesis 12:1-2a; 4)
OBSERVATION
Abraham is the biblical example of faith par excellence i.e. “Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6; Jas 2:23). His faith was so robust that he left everything he knew in order to go to the land that God will show him. Whereas most of us mere mortals need precise directions and a detailed map before we move out in faith, the presence of God was enough for Abraham to leave his country and family to obey the promises of God. Yet as robust as his faith was—it was still imperfect. He didn’t trust God with his posterity and blatantly lied (twice!) about his wife Sara while putting her life in danger. Living in faith is not a perfect endeavor. We stumble and fall in doing our best to follow God. One minute Abraham was courageous then the next minute he is a coward. Suck is the nature of faith.
APPLICATION
Failure is not final. Just because I fall doesn’t mean I quit. This long obedience in the same direction of following God is a marathon of falling and getting up. Martin Luther King Jr said, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” Faith is moving forward because God is faithful. When Abram failed God intervened to ensure that his promises would endure
PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for your faithfulness! Your faithfulness in providing and securing salvation in Christ is steadfast:
“If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:11-12)