Abraham's Big Blunder Didn't Stop God's Plan for His Life
As we move through human history in Genesis, we come to God’s course-altering promise to Abraham in chapter 12. Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing (Gen. 12:1-2).
What a grand way to start the chapter. But in the 18 verses that follow, we go from A) God’s amazing call and promise to Abraham to B) Abraham ending up in the promised land and building alters to God to (C) Abraham moving away from the promised land into Egypt because of a famine to D) Abraham assuming Pharoah will “want” his wife, and to spare his own skin, he makes a plan to allow Pharoah to peacefully take her from him. “So long, sweetie.”
How quickly he spirals into absurdity!
But my purpose here is not to drag Abraham through the mud. I want to point out a few things:
While Abraham was in charge of directing the affairs of their married life as the man of the household through whom God directs, Sarah was in charge of her responses. God doesn’t share her response or attitude here in Genesis. We like to imagine what our response would be. But we DO get her attitude in 1 Pet 3:1-6. She handled it like a champ, becoming one of our great role models.
But here’s the “rest of the story” from Gen. 12. It doesn’t end with Sarah becoming part of Pharoah’s haram. It ends with a “but God” moment. Read Gen. 12:17-20. God plagued Pharoah’s household because he took Sarah. Pharoah got to the bottom of it and discovered that Sarah was actually Abraham’s wife. The situation knocked some sense into Pharoah and he gave her back unharmed and sent them away after rebuking Abraham for allowing this situation to happen in the first place.
Here are the things I see from this chapter:
- No matter what the situation, God is in control. He can change bad circumstances around.
- When the husband makes seriously stupid choices, the wife’s correct response is to repeat these 2 verses: The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me? It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. (Ps. 118:6&8) And then, actually trust the Lord! It takes practice, but there’s victory to be had.
- God had a plan for Abraham and Sarah’s life. He already stated it earlier in the chapter. God will see to it that His plans and purposes are fulfilled. Nothing can stop it. Not even the forks in the road where we take the “wrong” turn.
- God can use unsaved people to help steer our lives into God’s paths. They don’t realize they are tools in God’s hands.
You probably already know all this, but look at it from a different perspective in the poem below.
Jody
What is There to Praise God About Now?
Could it be any more obvious that your days left on this earth are short? You are about to be in God’s presence—where worshipping Him will be the main focus. Get a good start on that right now. It begins with knowing some awesome things about your awesome God—things for which you can’t help but praise Him.
Take this verse: For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. (Rom 11:36)
First, what does it say? All things are of him, they go through Him and they are to Him. And so, all glory goes to Him. This speaks of the sovereignty of God in everything. Before you lower your eyes to the circumstances of your life, think of the testimony of some Bible characters. Think about Joseph’s life. His 11 brothers hated him and sold him as a slave where he ended up in Egypt. He had some bad times (unjustly accused of sexual misconduct and sent to prison) and good times (interpreted fellow prisoners’ dreams and was promoted to second in command under the king). Think of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt. They had some bad times (their hard labor was doubled) and good times (God released them and miraculously led them on dry land through the Red Sea). Are there others you can think of who had super highs and lows? How about Daniel, Samson and Paul?
Now back to our verse. For of him, and through him, and to him are all things. All things. That means the things that happened in those character’s lives were all of him, and through him and to him. And now, in hindsight, we see how that worked out in their lives. Not just their lives… go ahead and think of Sarah, Ruth and Esther. Good times and bad times, but all things in their lives were of him, and through him and to him. All their stories are testimonies to God’s glory that we learn from. (The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple Ps. 19:7b.)
He allows all things that happen for a purpose in His eternal plan. All those I mentioned above… God’s eternal plan. Life is a tapestry that we only see part of from the underside. He sees the beauty that He is creating from the top over time. We will get His perspective later. When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2). Time doesn’t permit me to give the example I’d like to give regarding our Rom 11:36 context. The chapter is about how things have been working for the whole nation of Israel (bad and good) for the sake of us Gentiles that we might be saved.
But here’s the final point. For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. (Rom 11:36) Let’s start giving Him that forever glory right now as we understand the truth of this verse.
Tell me what you think.
Jody