Abraham

I've mentioned the book I'm reading, Faith Set Free by Will Davis, Jr before. It is an incredible book but I'm not here to talk about that book.

I was reading it last night and Mr. Davis was talking about Abraham and my brain went off on a tangent that had nothing to do with the book.

Abraham has always intimidated me. His great faith, his unwavering devotion to a God he couldn't see. To a God who seemed to ask an awful lot of him and yes, God made enormous promises but they were all in the distant future, he had no real reward in the here and now.

Maybe I'm motivated by the wrong things, but I'm not sure I could obey like Abraham. I like the reward for good behavior promise. I like knowing if I do this, then I will get that. I like knowing if I run 2 miles today, I can have custard from Culver's this afternoon.

Abraham was told "Go, and I'll tell you when to stop going." And he went. God called Abraham (Abram then though) out of Ur of the Chaldeans, a pagan nation. Did Abram even know who God was? Did he say he was having a bit of wanderlust when he packed up his family and left?

If he knew God, what steps of faith did he take with God to get to the point of absolute utter and immediate obedience?

Abraham was promised a son. It took about 10 years but God fulfilled his promise. After Abraham tried and failed to push God into his box and make God operate on Abraham's (or more likely Sarah's) timetable. Then God told Abraham to sacrifice his promised son.

And the text in Genesis says "early the next morning....Abraham left." We aren't told of any argument Abraham might have offered. We are told the next morning, not after he had consulted Sarah, his family, his Bible, and his horoscope, we aren't told he prayed about it for a month or a year, we're told he did it early the very next morning.  What small steps of faith did Abraham take with God to get to this point?

We read of Abraham's big steps of faith, and some of his faith failures, but what about the small steps that made the big steps possible? Abraham was no different from me, and I would find it incredibly hard to just silently obey God in those two big things. Leaving and not knowing where I'm going? Hard. Sacrificing one of my children? Impossible! (Just had a thought....I'm sure human sacrifices were a way of life in Ur, but Abraham wasn't in Ur anymore. He didn't worship the gods he worshiped in Ur. Was he thinking God was no different than the gods he had worshiped?)

I know enough of faith to know I have to be faithful, I have to find God faithful in the small things or when the big things come the faith I need to survive won't be there.

I want faith like Abraham. I need faith like Abraham.  I want to know what small steps of faith he took to be the faith giant we know him to have been today.  Not that I think God is going to give me the same small faith steps, because I know He probably won't.

But because it would make Abraham more real. More someone I can relate to. Someone I can see who has hang ups, like me, someone who despite all of life, chose to believe.