The faithfulness of Abraham
O save your people, and bless your heritage;
Be their shepherd, and carry them forever. Psalm 28:9
Read Hebrews 11:8—12,17—19
Abraham could not have known when he followed a call of God and migrated, always in tents, only ever owning enough ground to bury his family, and when he kept believing in God in face of the impossible, he could not have known that I would be reading about him tonight. Nor that I would be his child by sharing his faith;[1] that I would share his faith because there is a world-wide church in which every member is an inheritor of the same promise made to Abraham, a church built by the God who called Abraham and who raises the dead.[2] And even we are not there yet. Like Abraham, we’re in tents, the solid city of God still promised. There are some most unsettling times when I am shaken loose from where I am. Then I need to ask God to be in my unsettlement. I need to discern if he is calling me to something new. If he is, the future fills with promise beyond my imagining.
God who called Abraham and Sarah, who promised the blessing of the entire world, and who fulfils your promise in Jesus Christ, when I, too, am unsettled, as humans can become; when I want to leave somewhere or some occupation or some attachment; when I feel shiftless or ready for a new direction, then grant me faithfulness to you. Let me give up my way for yours. Let me surrender my will afresh. Let me hear you with insight and with faithful obedience. Then, even to stay in the uncomfortable place will be a new beginning. Or to leave will be marked with the familiar. You delight to find a person faithful, and you bring about outcomes beyond what I can ask or think. I pray this night above all for faithfulness to you.
[1] Romans 4:16
[2] Romans 4:24