Musings

Things Will Be Different This Time

by Will Walker

– 8th in a series of reflections on the life of Abraham (previous entries) –

We left off in Genesis 15 … a month ago (I was busy, I had a baby, Bob needs room for argumentation). Anyway, “Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness.” God had verbally affirmed His promise— with visual aids— to Abraham at least twice before this (12:7 and 13:15-17). His relentless message was, “Abe, if I could pick anybody in the world for this, I’d pick you. Every time.” Then, in the third account of God’s affirmation, Abe’s response was essentially, ”God, I pick you too” (15:6).

Faith may not require details, but a little curiosity never hurt anyone: “O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it [the land]?” (15:8). God, because of His love for Abe, or perhaps His pity, did disclose some details about the land, how His people would endure 400 years of slavery in Egypt, and how they would come back to the land. Then, “on that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘to your descendants I give this land.’” In other words, “You want to know how all this is going to happen, Abe? Because I said so. That’s how.” Good point. If God makes a covenant with you, don’t worry about things insofar as His end of the deal is concerned.

Our end of the deal, however, merits some attention. Abe just had an amazing experience in which he believed God’s promise and trusted Him to fulfill it according to His word. Surely you have had moments like this one. Not ceremonies with goats and pigeons, but times when you wrestled with doubt – about God’s promises, about your purpose in life, about how things could possibly work out this time – only to have God meet with you and affirm His word in your life. You have believed God for what seemed beyond you and left that encounter with a renewed vision and determination. Those are key moments in life.

As surely as you have had those moments, you have also lost the zeal that they aroused. Reasons abound, but often the most difficult barrier to overcome is someone in your life who is pessimistic, cynical, doubting-- resistant to God’s plans … Sarah.

Sarah was getting antsy about this having-a-kid-thing, or in her case, not having a kid. It’s a reasonable concern. Maybe you know an elderly woman who is around 75. Picture her giving birth! So So Sarah said to Abe, “Honey, I don’t know why this isn’t working. We are certainly doing everything we can do. God must be preventing me from getting pregnant. Look, I have a maid named Hagar … "Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her" (16:2).

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I will say that the legal custom of that day allowed for such an arrangement. And Abe possibly reasoned that Hagar was a legitimate means of fulfilling the promise since God had specified only that his heir would come from his body (15:4). But that seems like a stretch to me. What people around us suggest may seem sensible, but didn’t God just say “I will do this?” So what did Abram the righteous do?

“Abram agreed to what Sarai said … He slept with Hagar, and she conceived” (16:3-4).

Abe wasn’t perfect. That’s obvious. But THIS … this is the height of foolishness. Not only was it another stupid attempt to manufacture God’s will, it had huge consequences.

First of all, Hagar got all snooty and despised Sarah because she conceived when Sarah couldn’t. So then Sarah blamed Abe since he was the one responsible for the conception. That’s how women are, you know, they tell you what to do and then get upset when it doesn’t turn out the way they wanted it to☺  So Abe said, “Hey woman! She’s your maid. You deal with it.” Seriously, this is how men can be … they pacify the desires of people around them— often women— because they don’t want to rock the boat, and usually the result is a storm that gets out of control. Sarah started treating Hagar like dirt to the point that Hagar ran away. God intervened and restored Hagar to Abram’s household, but the son to be named Ishmael was cursed. People and places change, but the destruction of the fall remains: alienation, blame, passivity, and curse.

Abe was no stranger to the consequences of trying to control outcomes (see Egypt). The difference here is that there is no account of repentance. The text just speaks of the consequences. Maybe old Abe felt good about what he had done (he got a son after all). Or maybe he was so buried in shame and regret that he couldn’t face God. Either way: no repentance … what happens now?  I mean, this messes up my diagram.

1 + 1 = more than you can count

by Will Walker

- Seventh in a series of relfections on Abraham (Genesis 15: 1-6) -

Abraham’s life is portrayed to us in a series of stories, like scenes in a movie. All of the stories begin with a call or command from God, or a crisis. The plot then moves along in cycles of faith or failure according to Abe’s response. If you are keeping track (and I am), the score to this point is 3 to 1 in favor of faith. Click here if you want to see the scorecard.

We left off in the middle of the fourth cycle, in the King’s Valley, where Abe swore his allegiance to the Lord. He committed himself to live by God’s provision alone. And as we have seen, blessing and assurance follows faith and obedience: “After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great.’"

How did Abe defeat all those armies with just 318 men? Because God was his shield. How could he refuse gifts from the King of Sodom? Because he was looking for a greater reward. This is all very interesting when read in light of Hebrews 11: “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

In a previous post I talked about a nightly ritual that I do with my son, in which I tell him, “Ethan, if all the little boys in the whole world were in a line, and I could only pick one, I’d pick you, every time.” This is not something that I can say once, or every now and then. Ethan needs to hear (and see) that I love him every day if he is going to really believe it. Abe is no different. These accounts of blessing and assurance are simply God affirming to Abe, over and over, that He picked him and still picks him.

Even as God was assuring Abe of His promise, Abe was expressing his uncertainty about the whole thing. The conversation went down something like this:

“God, how are You going to give me all this stuff You keep talking about if I don’t have a kid? Tell you what, I have thought about this … there is a boy named Eliezer who is in line to inherit my stuff. What if we just funnel the promise through him?”

“Abe, Eliezer is not the guy. Look, if you can scheme it up, then it is probably too easy for my liking. Come here, son [God putting His arm around Abe’s shoulder and walking him outside]. Look up at the stars and just try to count them. This is how many your offspring will be.”

“But God …”

“Shhhhh … keep looking.”

The text says that “Abram believed the LORD, and God credited it to him as righteousness.”

One night after tucking Ethan into bed, as I was walking out of the room, Ethan said, “Daddy” ... “Yeah, bud” ... “Um, if all the Daddies were in a line, I pick you.”

I had picked him hundreds of times. Why he chose – on that night – to tell me that he picks me, I don’t know. The only thing that mattered was the sheer bliss of a son’s reciprocating love. When Abraham believed, this is what he was saying: “God, I pick You, too.”

I don’t know how long Abe stargazed before he believed God, but I do have an idea as to what may have “clicked” in his mind that night. What was it about looking at the stars that could have moved Abe to believe God about His promise of a child? The answer, I think, is in Hebrews 11: 

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

Have you ever stood beneath the clear sky? It’s overwhelming … truly unbelievable. If you didn’t believe that God created it you would have no words to explain it. As it is, the only adequate words we have are “God said.” I think these are the thoughts going through Abe’s mind; that all of this came into existence simply because God spoke it, and that God made everything we see out of what is unseen. And then it hit him.

God said He would give him a child. And even though Abe couldn’t see how it would happen, God brings into existence that which we cannot see, by the power of His word. You do the math.

LIVING WITH OUR PAST, BUT NOT IN IT

by Will Walker

-- Sixth in a series of reflections on Abraham (Genesis 14) -

The first (and maybe only) thing I want to say about Genesis 14 is that it is very cool … kings, ally armies, tar pits, and titles like “Kedorlaomer king of Elam.” Besides having an awesome name, this particular king was the big boy on the block for 12 years, “but in the thirteenth year they [the other kings] rebelled.”

“In the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him went out and defeated” … everybody they encountered. I’m telling you, they were not to be messed with. This seems out of place in the Abraham narrative, but here is where it becomes his business: Kedorlaomer and his boys “seized all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food; then they went away. They also carried off Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions, since he was living in Sodom.”

Here we go again with Lot. Somebody should have told Abe not to bring him along. Oh wait, someone did tell him … God! When God called Abe back in Ur, He said, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you.” Abe stepped out in faith to leave, but he also took his dad and his nephew (Lot), which I think was at least partially disobedient to the command. God did not say anything about it at the time, but that does not mean He was pleased with it. God will “let” you do things your way, but “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7). Indeed, this is not the first or the last time that Lot would bring about some stress in Abe’s life.

Nevertheless, we are where we are, mistakes and all. Abe brought Lot, and he would have to deal with that reality, consequences and all. But whatever we have done, we can still choose faith and obedience in the present. This is the essence of maturity, and also the makings of a very cool chapter in Genesis. Check this out:

“When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus. He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people. After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley).”

I told you. It gets better:

“The king of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give me the people and keep the goods for yourself.’ But Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I have raised my hand to the LORD, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, 'I made Abram rich.’”

That, my friends, is pure manliness. This is the same guy who fled to Egypt and lied about his wife because he was worried about his well-being. But now we see an altogether different person. A leader of men. A follower of God Most High.

That day in the King’s Valley, I think Abe remembered how he had weaseled his way into acquiring a bunch of stuff from the Pharaoh in Egypt. That was, after all, a major reason that Lot had to go to Sodom in the first place (they had to part ways because they had so much stuff). The way he spoke to the king of Sodom – with such conviction – I am inclined to believe that after the Egypt incident, Abe decided that from that point on God alone would prosper him.

This is a solid indication of maturing faith. Continuing to repeat the same foolishness over and over could be an indication that we haven’t really repented, but merely confessed our sin as a kind of quick-fix for our feelings of guilt. Abe portrays the actual life of faith, not because he is perfect, but because of how we see the Author and Perfecter finishing what He started in Abe’s life, the grace of God made manifest in the repentance and faith of men.

We are not defined by the sins of our past, nor will we be remembered for them. Our legacy is not who we once were, but who we are now becoming.

How Far Is Too Far?

by Will Walker

- Fifth in a series of reflections on Abraham (Genesis 13) -

Following along in a series is difficult. You’ve slept since the last post. So where are we?

God called Abe out of Ur to “a land that I will show you” … Abe went … God blessed him … he worshipped God … then we find him “journeying toward the Negev,” which I loosely associate with day-to-day-life. Then there was “a famine in the land” … Abe fled to Egypt where he pretended that his wife was his sister … that did not go well and resulted in consequences for everyone involved. Abe went back to the altar he had built in Canaan (repented) and he worshipped God there. These are the two cycles I see in Abraham’s life, and in a general way I think these patterns ring true in our lives as well.

The next two scenes in the Genesis narrative follow the first cycle, the one of obedience and faith. Let’s look at the first one in Genesis 13:

Lot and Abe were both doing pretty well for themselves, to the point that there wasn’t enough land for all their livestock. Their herdsmen were having turf wars. Now Abe runs the ship. He could just send Lot on his way. Instead, he said, “Hey Lot, look, I don’t want this to come between us, so why don’t you tell me where you want to go, and I’ll go the other way.” So Lot looked down over the valley of the Jordan and saw how good the land was and chose that for himself. The reason I find this important is because Abe did not try to manipulate things to go his way, like he had in Egypt. In faith He trusted his lot in life, so to speak, to God.

So what comes after faith? Blessing and assurance: “The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, ‘Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you” (vs. 14-17)

God pulled Abe aside after he got the worse of the two lands to say, “Good choice. You don’t need to worry about the land. I promised it and I will make it happen. Go walk through it … I want you to see and feel and hear everything that I will give to you.”

What comes next— worship: “So Abraham moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD”— does not come next simply because it is next on my diagram. There is a theme developing in Abe’s life, and it is that he stops to worship in every new place. Even when the promise had not yet come, he worshipped at every turn of God’s provision along the way.

This is not very insightful, I know, but I point it out because this theme does not surface in many of our stories. Either we like to take credit for our work, or else we are simply forgetful. In the first case we are lead to self-worship, and in the second case we are lead to worship whatever has our attention at the moment.

In my context as a campus minister, we talk about reaching students at UT so that every student knows someone who follows Jesus. This is an incredibly large vision. We are not close to that reality now, nor are we likely to be close in the near future. A vision like this one— like taking over Canaan, or fulfilling the Great Commission, or sanctification— is so big that successes along the way seem too trivial to elicit worship. How foolish and arrogant!

If we want to worship the God who ordains the ends, then let us also worship the God who displays His love and faithfulness in the means. In our daily grind, God calls us to supernatural life. Follow and worship. With every step of faith God is blessing us and assuring us of His pleasure. Stop and worship. In every crisis, God is ready to show His generous provision. Trust and worship. At every point of waywardness, God’s pursues us with relentless kindness. Repent and worship!

Diagramming the Narrative

by Will Walker

- Fourth in a series of reflections on Abraham -

Already in three brief entries, two important patterns have emerged in Abe’s life.

Here is the first cycle: God calls Abram – Abraham obeys – he experiences blessing – he worships – then eventually comes down off the mountain, so to speak, to day-to-day life. That is Genesis 12:1-9.

Here is the second cycle: There is a crisis – Abe takes matters into his own hands – he sins – he and those around him experience the consequences of his sin – Abe repents – worships – and gets back to day-to-day life. That is Genesis 12:10-13:5.

He is always confronted with a call from God, a crisis, or a command from God. What follows is always dependent upon Abe’s response to those three things. Either way, both cycles begin and end with day-to-day life— "between the altars". What happens in between forms the narrative of Abraham’s life.

I think these cycles ring true in our lives as well. If I asked you to diagram your spiritual life, I suspect that most people would draw a line graph, moving from side to side along a horizontal plane, with peaks and valleys along the way. If you are an optimist, then you might move from bottom left to top right with peaks and valleys. Either way is fine. I’m not going to say that there is a right way to diagram spiritual life. I’m not even going to say that you can diagram spiritual life. I’m just going to say that what you see in the diagrams below are the predominant cycles I see in Abraham’s life, and for the most part, ours (BTW: I think they move up and to the right because of God’s intent to bless us and accomplish His work through us).

When you look at Abe’s entire life, you see a series of circles above and below the line: faith and doubt, struggle and success, leadership and passivity, sin and worship … this should sound eerily familiar to you. I think this is why I enjoy Abe’s story so much. He was an actual person working out his faith on this actual planet, not too different than you and me.

I wanted to pause for a moment in our journey through the text to point this out because these patterns will shape my thoughts on the rest of the narrative. Further, I wanted to say that I don’t think there is a clearer expression of the process by which we grow in our faith than the account of Abraham’s life, and if you fail to think of him as a real person like us, you’ll miss it entirely.

Has Anybody Seen that Altar I Built?

by Will Walker

- Third in a series of reflections on Abraham (Genesis 13:1-5) -

Quick Review: Abram made it to the "land that I will show you" and worshipped when he got there. But when a crisis hit-- “a famine in the land”-- he fled to Egypt. On the way he decided that he would say that Sarai, his wife, was his sister in order to protect himself. That is when the *you know what* hit the fan in Egypt.

You can do two things when you’ve hit bottom: dig your heels in or call upon God.

"So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him … From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the LORD."

The life of faith is repentant, fallen people learning to relate to the God who made them. So why would we ever fight for our independence instead of returning home to God? Because we are angry instead of sorry. And we are angry because we feel as though we’ve been punished and not disciplined. Repentance is the fruit of discipline.

This is a constant struggle in raising kids— to help them understand our actions as discipline and not punishment. I have a four-year old boy, Ethan. I love him. He, like Abe, makes bad choices, and those choices have consequences. But no matter the decision or the severity of consequence, our love is unchanging. If he doesn’t believe that, I suspect he will think that we are punishing him, which I have seen leads to anger and a fight for independence. That I love him is not enough. He has to believe it.

We desire repentance from Ethan because we want more than justice. We want relationship. When he sins, I am not primarily mad at him for disobeying. I am concerned that he is going to miss out on what’s best for him, that he will not become the kind of person that I believe he can be. It’s training, not punishment.

Before Ethan could talk, I started this thing at bedtime where I would lean down real close to his face and say, “Ethan, if all the little boys in the whole world were in a line, and I could only pick one, I’d pick this one (tapping my finger on his chest)”. He would just lie there. Even after he started talking he wouldn’t say anything, just smile and sometimes giggle. One night I leaned down and said, “Ethan, if all the little boys in the whole world were in a line, and I could only pick one …” Before I could say it he threw his arms up in the air and shouted, “PICK MEEEEEE!”

A few months ago, Ethan and I were sitting on his bed when he looked at me and asked, “Daddy, even when I do bad things do you love me?” I said, “That’s right. I love you as much as I can no matter what.” So two weeks ago— just to see what he’s thinking— I asked him, “Ethan, does Daddy love you?” “Yes,” he said with a giggle. Then I asked him, “What if you did really mean things to Daddy, would I still love you then?” He said, “yes” again. So I asked, “How do you know I would still love you?” He thought for a second and said, “Because I do mean things to Mommy and she still loves me.”

However it happens, we must become convinced that God picked us in Christ because of His great love for us, and that our adoption into His family means that He is our Daddy. If you think God’s primary disposition toward you is anger or disappointment, you will feel that you are being punished. But if you believe that God is for you, wants to bless you, you will feel that you are being disciplined by a loving Father.

As I see it, we generally have two problems with God being for us. The first one is that we are not for us. We’re negative about life, pessimistic about our abilities, addicted to self-pity … God could scream “I pick you” at the top of His lungs and we would miss it because we are already convinced that that would never happen to us. The second problem we have is that we are for us, but in the wrong way— for our own glory. We want what God can do for us more than we want God.

Honestly, I am both: I solicit pity by acting like God is not for me (negativity) in order to get others to be for me (for my glory). This is why I get frustrated or angry when things do not go my way or when I do not get the attention that I am vying for. It’s also why people get defensive … they are digging their heels in, fighting for independence. Repentance is an admission of how miserable independence really is, and a return to “the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the LORD.”

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

by Will Walker

- Second in a series of reflections on Abraham (Genesis 12:8-20) -

When Abe finally made it to Canaan, “The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’” So he did what you and I would have done: he “built an altar there to the Lord.” What else could he have done— pat himself on the back for making it that far?

When we follow God we worship Him for leading us. When we obey God we worship Him for enabling us. If we don’t “build an altar there to the Lord” we will end up building a tower to make a name for ourselves. Abe built an altar there, and then again a short time later when he settled between Bethel and Ai.

“Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.”

The reality of life is what takes place in the day-to-day, between the altars. It’s one thing to follow God’s call or obey His command, but what about trusting Him when He seems to be nowhere in sight— in crisis? Trust is the form of day-to-day worship.

“Now there was a famine in the land.”

If I were Abe I would be thinking things like, “This is some land You led us to God. Funny, I don’t remember You mentioning the part about starving.” So they did what any of us would naturally do: they went somewhere where there was food. I don’t know that it was necessarily wrong for Abe to go to Egypt. I mean, he had a family to feed, right? Wrong or not, I am saying that we are prone to take matters into our own hands when things get uncomfortable. Worship gives way to worry, and trust gets pushed aside in the wake of task.

Independence guarantees worry. Worry is a precursor to fear. Fear begets foolishness. Abe started to wonder what would happen to them when they got to Egypt … "See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife'; and they will kill me, ”Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you."

So that is what they did, and Pharaoh took Sarai to be his own and loaded up Abe with a bunch of livestock and servants. Not only did Abe use Sarai to protect himself, and lied about her being his wife, he didn’t seem to mind profiting materially from the scheme. His reasoning seemed to be that the end would justify the means. His foolishness is clear, but the real insult was that Abe didn’t trust God to provide the means to His own end.

I have found that God will let you do stupid things, but not without bringing some pain into your life. And not just your life, as sin affects everyone in its path. God struck Pharaoh’s entire house with plagues.

Pharaoh figured it out and then in what had to be an embarrassing scene, he went to Abraham and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? "Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and go." Shame is inherent in the fall. And if you think Pharaoh’s anger was hard to swallow, try to imagine the wrath he came under when they got home!

Even when “the land that I will show you” doesn’t seem very good, God still is. For how will He show Himself trustworthy if we do not trust, generous if we are not in need, worthy if we do not worship?

at the end of a long day

by Will Walker

- The first in a series of reflections on Abraham (Genesis 12:1-7) -

In the beginning the earth was formless and empty, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. The Word of God spoke light into darkness and created order out of chaos. Then they made man and woman— image bearers of the Triune God. God’s blessing reigned and it was all very good. Perfect, in fact.

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” They were tricked. “She gave me the fruit and I ate it” … “the serpent deceived me and I ate it.”

The creation began to unravel: Order regressed to panic; fellowship gave way to hiding and blaming; blessing turned to cursing; life met death. Sin spread like cancer on the earth to the point that God grieved that He had made man. He started over with Noah, but it got even worse. Mankind collaborated to build a tower because they would not submit to God. They wanted to make a name for themselves instead of glorify the name of the One who made them. So the Lord scattered them.

Some time later, on an otherwise typical day, behind the scenes, God appeared to Abram in the land of Ur – an idol worshipping community—and said: "Leave your country, your relatives and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will  be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

And with that begins the history of the people of Israel, and the redemptive plan of God to restore order and fellowship to a fallen world.

I like to think that Abram was a normal guy, that his friends called him Abe, that when God appeared to him he was unwinding from a long day, perhaps smoking his pipe on the front porch. I imagine that he had settled in and was pretty comfortable in Ur. And that is what makes God’s words so dramatic: “Abram, get up and leave the place where you have grown up, where you have worked the land and learned the system, where you have made a life for yourself. Get your things together and leave this place.”

And for what? … “a land that I will show you”. I would have wanted more details, at least a hint of some kind. The narrative does not include such a conversation (though I am convinced there was one). Instead it moves the story along: “So Abram left, as the LORD had told him … and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land."

Thus, the conflict for our story is established … “the Canaanites were in the land”. They represent the fall, the very thing which God intends to triumph over: "To your offspring I will give this land." This will be a head to head battle, God’s Word (Creation) against the waywardness of man (fall). God is going to take on the world through the seed of one man: Abram of Ur (redemption).