Stepping Out in Faith
Genesis 15:1-12,17-18
The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 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?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you 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.” He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.”
As a student of the Bible, I have come to appreciate the irony that is often contained within the Scriptures. The lesson this morning from Genesis includes one of my very favorites—which is, any time you hear “do not be afraid” in the Bible you can be confident that those words will raise your blood pressure! They are usually accompanied by something that God has just done or is about to do that is, frankly, just beyond our human capacity to understand, to explain, or is just flat overwhelming.
You’ll recall from the 12th chapter of Genesis that Abram is seventy-five and has been told by God that he will be the father of all nations, and his descendants will possess the land. In today’s lesson, Abram essentially says, “I have no heirs; you promised; how’s that supposed to happen?” And God famously says, “Do not be afraid” and assures Abram that it will all happen without bothering to offer any details. Walter Brueggemann reflects, “You are a God who makes promises with no evidence at hand or in sight. You are a God powerful in purpose, hidden in performance, faithful over time.”
Isn’t that really our walk with God? That God desires more for us than we could imagine would be possible? In our humanness, in the facts on the ground, we could never make that quite square up. Yet we’re called to step out in faith. Doris Betts writes that “Faith is not synonymous with certainty, but it’s a decision to keep your eyes open.”
In this season of Lent, as we continue to make our way to Jerusalem to claim a promise by God that is so beyond our imagining—a gift unlike any other—what might God be calling us to do that requires us to step out in faith when we can’t make the evidence at hand or in sight square with that call?
Blessings and in faith, Jan+
prayer
Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Daily Lenten meditations each have a companion morning prayer video offered by the same clergy. View the YouTube playlist to find this meditation’s companion video, or to watch others.