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When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Genesis 17:1-2  ESV

Is anyone too old for God to do a new thing?  We often despair when, at mid-life, we feel that we have missed opportunities that can never be recovered.  The prime years of life (as we define them) are behind us and we believe we are too far down the road for God to bring about any kind of new beginning.  We call the decades we’ve lived up to this point ~ ‘the wasted years.’

It’s time to look back and consider Abram.  He was ninety-nine when the Lord appeared and reiterated the blessing and covenant He had made with him earlier.  God was about to change his name ~ a cataclysmic spiritual event that always precedes spiritual greatness.  He was anything but washed up.  Over the course of his life, Abram took great steps of faith but also matched those with great steps of failure.  He betrayed his wife before a foreign king, and then much later, took her handmaiden to produce an heir.  He made a mess of family relationships.  If anyone could have felt disqualified for future promises, it was Abram.

God is never stymied by the improbabilities and limits of old age.

In You, Jesus, all things are made new. I’ve not yet reached my prime.  It will be realized in eternal realms.  Amen

So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”  Genesis 16:13  ESV

Jesus revealed His identity to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.  God revealed His identity to Hagar at a well in the middle of the wilderness.  It was there, in the lives of these two women, that divine encounters occurred.  They were so powerful that they changed the course of both of their lives.

I read their stories and I can long to be in their shoes for those few moments.  But wait!  I can be. Weary children of God can still stop by a well, dip their cup, and experience God.

Who can’t relate to Hagar at some point in their life?  Sinned against.  Singled out as the object of someone’s wrath.  Fragile and seeking stability.  Closed off and cynical.  Wondering if God sees you.  Fearing you may be His forgotten child.

Run to the well.  Jesus is Living Water and the scriptures are the point of encounter.  Rest there.  Bring your aching heart and hope once more in the God who sees.  El Roi.  Hagar named the Lord “The One who sees me.”  In the deafening silence of her wilderness, there was One who saw, One who spoke, and One who made outrageous promises.

God loves to be experienced.  He promises that, for any who searches, He will be found.  Today, I make the scriptures my resting place and I won’t stop drinking until my thirst is quenched.  This has never been, nor will it ever be, a futile endeavor. 

I am Yours even when I’m in the wilderness.  Even though I may see nothing but sand, You see nothing but me.  Amen

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.”  Genesis 16:7-9  ESV

Hagar was pregnant and alone in the middle of a wilderness. She had been mistreated by Sarai and unprotected by Abram.  In an intensely stressful situation, no one had handled it well.  Hagar reached her breaking point and decided she couldn’t take any more.  She ran away and headed toward Egypt, her home of origin.

God came to her in her perceived isolation.  He noticed her, addressed her with an audible voice, and gave her a life-defining moment.  The greatest choice lay in front of her, and it was presented when the stakes were the highest.  She could go home and ignore God’s command, or she could obey Him, return to Sarai, and risk more mistreatment.

Every one of us will experience a moment when we long to escape from somewhere.  We each have our limits.  Oppressive environments drive us to the edge of our ability to cope and we look for any way possible to flee those who mistreat us.  (And in the case of personal safety, fleeing is always the right thing to do!)  But outside of abuse, what if God asks us to stay?  What if bearing up well during harassment bears eternal rewards?  It’s possible.  God promises treasures in the darkness and, oh, how precious they are.  Wisdom, private tutoring, spiritual grit, keen discernment about good and evil.  These are but just a few.

Do you want to flee a job where treatment is unfair?  Wanting out of a marriage that grew cold long ago?   Are you a caregiver to an aging parent, one that doesn’t appreciate your sacrifices?  Maybe you’re dreaming of relinquishing responsibility and sending them to a nursing home.  The question is whether you and I are willing to stay, or go, depending on God’s revealed will to us.  Sometimes, God tells us it’s time to uproot.  Other times He tells us to endure for another season of time.  We can do either ~ by God’s grace ~ when we know He is personally with us.

What gave Hagar the emotional and spiritual fortitude to return to Abram and Sarai?  She had a personal encounter with God.  She learned that she was neither forgotten nor alone on her solitary journey.  God regarded her kindly, patiently, and with a desire to bless her.  Such favor made returning bearable.  She knew that she wouldn’t be alone, no matter what the outcome.  She heard God’s voice, felt His love, and could depend on every promise He made to her.  The God of Hagar is my God today.  No matter how desperate I am, He is right here offering an encounter that will fuel obedience.

Stay?  Go?  No matter what I want, I want what You want more.  Amen

And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!”  Genesis 16:4-5  ESV

Human nature is complicated in its sinfulness.  When someone is guilty, sometimes they don’t think they can bear it.  To feel better, they transfer the blame and lash out at someone as if the whole matter were their fault.  This is ‘blame-shifting.’

Sarai did it.  God made Sarai and Abram a promise of a child in their old age.  Sarai fainted as time progressed and believed God wasn’t good for it.  She took matters into her own hands and told Abram to sleep with her handmaid so there would be a child for her to hold in her arms.  Abram did what she asked.  When Hagar became pregnant, Sarai lashed out at Hagar, who only did what she was told.  She then lashed out at Abram (who was also guilty), yet Sarai was the one who had originally suggested their sinful detour.

It is a rare person who is willing to be humbled under the hand of God. There is a season where each of us is led to submit to God’s discipline for our choices.  The consequences unfold and they seem too much to bear.  Grace is poured out if we ask, and as we look to God for strength to endure, He gives a gift for our forbearance.  Wisdom!  He shows us what it is in each of us, specifically, that urged us to cave into the pressure to sin.  He reveals each step we took as we approached sin’s threshold.  He shows us the sin from His viewpoint and what harm it produced.  After a time, he starts shedding light on what redemption will look like.  One step at a time, He leads us out.  As forgiveness and restoration begin to take place, we are given a gift that will live in us forever, a firsthand experience of the nature and character of a just and forgiving God.

Only You, Lord, can lead me through the minefield of real guilt and false guilt.  Only You can help me suffer patiently for the wrongs I’ve done.  Restoration is mine but only as a reward for accepting Your hand of discipline.  I see there are no shortcuts.  Grace and comfort…you offer.   Amen

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.  Genesis 16:1&2  ESV

Oh, see what hopelessness yields if acted upon!  Abram empathized with Sarai, succumbed to hopelessness, and then took her advice.  What’s missing from this part of the narrative is prayer.  Sarai didn’t take her plight to God.  Abram didn’t either.  He could have offered to build an altar, make a sacrifice, and cry out to the only One who could save them.  Instead, he and his wife engineered a human solution and the world has suffered ever since. 

Hopelessness is like cancer.  It metastasizes like wildfire because the natural tendency of every human being is to wrestle with unbelief.  It goes against every natural grain to have faith.  That’s why I must fight for it!  What little I do possess; I must guard with my life.  I must surround myself with others who are also engaged in the battle because when I am my weakest and most vulnerable, they can pray for me and whisper God’s promises into the heart of my doubts.

There is a cross for every child of God to bear.  Though I can think someone else’s life looks perfect, it isn’t.  The cross God has given me is mine to carry, not to abandon.  I must not spend all my energy trying to figure out how to engineer a solution to it.  Instead, I should surrender it to God and ask for the daily grace to carry the cross well.  If Abram and Sarai’s cross had been permanent barrenness; God would have carried them on the wings of faith.  The irony is that they didn’t have to guess the outcome.  God promised them a child.  Deliverance was coming, but in the difficult waiting period, they despaired.  Hagar and Abram’s union would be a disaster.

If you are about to enact a human solution to that which seems too crushing to bear, stop!  Either ask God to show you what to do and wait for Him to move or let us be like the Apostle Paul.  Though he asked for the thorn in the flesh to be removed, God did not do it.  Paul submitted and through his weakness, He experienced the strength God gives.  So much so ~ that it became the focal point of His stories.  All His boasting was in the keeping power of Christ.

What will I do if some of my prayers are not answered the way I want?  I will be faithful, relying on Your grace.  I will speak well of you.  Amen

And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”  Genesis 15:16  ESV

Many stumble over God because He waits so long to judge evil.  Those who suffer at the hands of others cry out to God for deliverance.  The pain is unbearable.  The damage seems irreparable.  The thought of it having no end seems unthinkable.  They believe that God should have already done something because a good Father promises to protect His people.  It’s difficult to explain God’s reasons for when and how he metes out justice.  Who can know the mind of God! 

Today’s scripture provides a context for long-standing evil. The 400 years of Jewish slavery in Egypt is foretold to Abram.  God reveals that He will not bring them out of slavery until the iniquity of the Amorites is complete.  The Amorites are the ones who possess Canaan, the Promised Land.  Their heinous sins will grow slowly over the course of six generations.  There will be a limit, however, to what God allows.  When their iniquity reaches the heights of notoriety, God will strike through the warfare of His people coming against the giants of the land.

From this story, there are a couple of things I can conclude.  1. God does allow some evil to run a long course and His people are oppressed for a time.  2. He waits to judge because His heart is merciful, and He gives all mankind innumerable chances to hear His call and respond with repentance.  3. He allows evil to become blatant so that when He strikes, the message is clear about the consequences of sin.  4. With judgment, God’s power, justice, holiness, and glory are on full display.

As I look back on my own life, only in hindsight do I understand a little of why God restrained justice.  While I waited, I learned about the nature of evil.  The longer I suffered, the more wisdom became mine.  When God moved, I could see that freedom came right on time.  It was a knowing in my spirit even though many of my questions remained.  The real test came in the waiting, in the middle of the pain and the unanswered questions.  The test was whether I could say that God was good and was doing all things well, even though there was little visible evidence.

When you and I don’t understand His mind nor His seeming inactivity, we can know that He has good reasons for how He chooses to rule.  In the end, heaven will reveal that God loved every one of us perfectly.

I pray right now for everyone who is suffering under the hand of evil.  Increase their faith.  Restore their trust.  Resurrect their cries for deliverance.  Oh Lord, judge the wicked and come to the aid of Your people.  Amen

And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram…   Genesis 15:7-12  ESV

God cut a covenant with Abram to confirm the validity of all He had promised him.  It was a blood offering, a blood oath.  From that day on, there would be vows in place between God and Abram because of this ceremony.  The ritual of cutting a covenant meant that each party was pledging all they were and all they owned to be forever available to the other person.  Abram gave up all rights to himself and offered God the wealth of all he owned (exhibited by sacrificing the best of his flock for the covenant ceremony itself) as well as all rights to himself.  He was no longer master of his own life but permanently put himself at God’s disposal.

A new covenant was cut at Calvary.  Blood was shed again, except now it wasn’t the blood of animals, it was the blood of God’s own Son.  When I embraced Jesus and came to God through the way of the cross, I took part in the covenant He offered just as tangibly as Abram and God enacted their ceremony.  If I belong to Christ today, the covenant is firmly in place and this is what it means.

Lord, I am completely yours.  I give up all rights to myself and like Abram, I am listening for Your voice to lead me on my journey.  All I am and all I have is Yours.  I am at Your disposal for always.

God’s response.   And all I am is yours!  All I have is yours.  The resources of heaven are at your disposal.  Like Abram, you are on a journey and there will be hardships but hold on, you will inherit the land.  You are an heir of everything I have given my Son.  Defer your hope to eternal things.  Because of our covenant, I have your back.  I will protect and keep you, and totally provide for you. 

Who benefits most from this covenant?  Me, for sure!  Yet, throughout my journey with God, I break the fidelity of our covenant exchange.  In ancient times, the penalty was death.  But God even took care of that.  Jesus died in my place for all the times I would be unfaithful.   Covenant love is not threatened by my poor performance or my failing heart.

I can’t tell you how many times I have thought, “Oh, how costly is my salvation.  I must give up all rights to myself and to my life?”  That is tragically skewed.  Did I only consider my part in the covenant?  Apparently.  I forgot that God promised me all of Himself and everything He owns. 

Forgive me for counting the cost and thinking the price is too high.  I am the beneficiary of everything eternal.  Amen

And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”  Genesis 15:7-8  ESV

Because of Jesus’ harsh words in the Gospels about asking for a sign, I can wrongly conclude that asking for such a thing is displeasing to God.  But this story is just one passage in the Old Testament that proves God gladly gives signs.  The difference between an acceptable request and an unacceptable request is the kind of heart that asks.

Abram had already believed God, so much so that God had declared him righteous.  The sign he asked for was a commemorative event that would forever serve to remind him that God’s promise would come true.

An unacceptable request for a sign comes from unbelief.  You’ve heard people say such things.  “When God comes down here Himself to tell me, then I’ll believe it!”  With such statements, there is no humility, no trace of true searching.  The undertone smacks of blasphemy.

If signs were evil, then why would God give Jesus as a sign?  Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.  Is.7:14   When His people, in the context of relationship, looked longingly for salvation, God gave the best sign of all.  His only Son!

Perhaps God has spoken to you about your future.  You know that God does not lie.  You know that God is a covenant-keeping God.  You have been standing in faith, watching for the fulfillment of what He has promised.  But let’s face it, there are discouraging days.  We have an enemy who assaults us on all sides and undermines God’s character.  Our hearts can faint even though at the core of our spirit, we still believe.  We cry out to God for a sign, for a commemorative event that will strengthen our weakened hearts. God knows the deep weariness that plagues His people during steep obedience.  He is the one who sent angels to minister to Jesus in the wilderness when He was depleted and weary.   He is the Father who rewards faith with signs and answered prayers.

You are the Father who rewards my faith with signs, wonders, and answered prayers.  In between, give me the grace for sustaining faith.  Amen

And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.  Genesis 15:6  ESV

Abraham believed God for what he didn’t have (an heir and descendants), and for what he could never have without God making it happen.  That was called faith. God was so overjoyed by Abram’s faith that he declared him righteous on the spot.  God made it as though Abram lived on the other side of the cross, already wearing Christ’s righteousness.  Only Abram in all of history, prior to the death of Christ, was justified and declared righteous.  The rest of God’s followers made continual sacrifices to cover their sins, but their sins weren’t taken away for another thousand years.

This tells me, through story form, how much God prizes faith.  Am I believing God today for something I don’t have, for something I could never have without a gift from God’s hand?  Have I put everything on the line – waiting for God to move?  That is how faith looks. 

When I embraced Jesus as my Savior, I believed that He would forgive me and adopt me as His own.  These were things I couldn’t earn nor accomplish in any way for myself.  I laid everything on the line for what God promised to do for me.  That was my first great act of faith.  But my life is to be marked by daily acts of faith.  It’s tragic when I enter the kingdom by faith only to live the rest of my life attempting to control things.  I miss out on the miracles and the amazement!

In the mid-90s, I put everything on the line.  Many things crumbled all around me.  I could have shut down, curled up in a ball, decided to live with a deadened heart, or I could decide to cast my life upon Jesus and cry out for what I would never have without His intervention.  I’m so glad I made the third choice.

I look again at my life this morning.  I examine what appears hopeless, where I believe nothing can ever change.  This is where faith can be born.  I take my unbelief, speak God’s words over my dark thoughts, and cast all my hopes on Christ. 

Faith is not rational.  It appears ludicrous to anyone watching.  That’s okay, Jesus.  Faith is a supernatural thing, fed on the diet of Your Word and the breath of Your Spirit.  Amen

But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”  Genesis 15:2  ESV

Abandoning prayer about anything is a mistake but abandoning prayer for what I’m most in need of is a grave error.  Prayerlessness is the result of unbelief.  I have concluded that God can’t, or won’t, do anything good for me.  When I read God’s promises, I can be a skeptic, because they are so far out of my reach. 

God promised Abram an heir, with descendants as numerous as the sands of the sea.  The thought of this must have seemed ludicrous to Abram because, at that point, his only heir was a slave of his household.  He and his wife, Sarah, were too old to bear children.  Yet in spite of this obstacle, Abram believed and his faith that God could do the impossible was credited to him as righteousness.

I frequently ask myself where I have lost faith in God.  When captivity spans 15 years, when infertility enters the second decade of a marriage, when a wayward child doesn’t call home in years, when depression becomes a way of life, when financial struggles become the norm, when the family experiences a seemingly irreparable breach, these are the kinds of things that tempt me to lose faith. 

I need to hear the voice of the God of Abraham.  He lives in Spirit form, right in my own heart.  He’s speaking constantly, wooing me to believe, wooing me to hope in Him again.  He is the One who does the impossible as He rewards the ones who persevere in prayer.

At this moment, the embers of faith are stirring in someone reading this.  Is it you?  Tears of relief are in your eyes as you realize that deep discouragement no longer need be your friend.  You can be fully alive to God, fully alive to faith, once again!  As you and I look at a few of the sad themes of our lives, we can numb out and feel nothing.  That is the very area where prayers of faith need to live.

I infuse my unbelief with your hope-giving Word.  Amen