God brought Abram outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then God said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6 And Abram believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15: 5-6)
Listening to the news, visiting with neighbors, having hard conversations with our children, pondering our own needs and wants, hearing of loved ones struggling in what ought to be happy times and finding out of horrible cancers in the middle of a pandemic has made all of us a little less than hopeful. Add to this a political and economic environment that is equally challenging, it doesn’t feel like the kingdom of God has arrived in all of its fullness. It doesn’t feel like we are a people blessed.
When Abram was called outside to look at the stars he was childless. He was not yet the proud parents of a brood that would span generations and centuries. He must have wondered what God could possibly mean when God told him to look at the stars and count them. How could he imagine the fullness of God when everything in his experience told whispered the impossible?
Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Though there was a lack of proof, Abram believed God. He trusted that what God promised would come to pass.
Our scripture tells us again in Hebrews 11:12—from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
For Abram to stand on the edge of the promise God made him, the promise of descendants too numerous to count, with the reality of barrenness heavy upon him, it would have felt like he was dead. With no children to follow, the line of Abram would come to an end. Abram could have chosen to be resigned to childlessness, he could have chosen to lament and live a life of despair, instead, he responded to the promise God gave him with hope.
Hope calls us to imagine something other than our current reality. It invites us to alternatives to the conversations we have been having with our children and those troubling visits with neighbors. Hope calls us to hear of a cancer diagnosis with a conviction that God has something different in mind for us and for the world. Hope calls us to understand the current political and economic environment as a season in the midst of many ordained by God.
When God made the promise to Abram, God was pulling him beyond the moment of lament, loss and disappointment into a future that was not defined by what he had experienced previous to the making of that promise. Abram would hear the cries of babies wake in the night. He would have seven children who would have children who would have children and so on. God was faithful to the promise God made to Abram.
When God makes promises to us, God is pulling us beyond our moments of lament, loss and disappointment into a future that is not defined by what we experience prior to the making of the promise. We are not the first generation of God’s people to feel despair and wonder when we hear the good news if life can be the blessing we desperately want it to be.
The challenge for Abram and for you and I is that we want the promise now. We are called to patience as we hope despite all evidence to the contrary. Through our lack of vision, we trust in God’s unfailing grace. We will know the kingdom of God arriving in all of its fullness.
Today we look through a mirror dimly but soon we will see as God sees. We are a people of promise, a people of faith. May the promises of God keep and sustain you today and always.
Thanks be to God!
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