The drama. The love. The relationship. The lies. All the stuff that makes up today's soap operas. Well, who am I fooling, all the stuff that makes up our lives today, we find in Genesis 17, 18 and 19.
It's impossible to touch on every point, the intermingling of God and man is so detailed...so deep. But I want to share some things that I love about these chapters and some things that I ponder over, mull over, wonder about.
Some things that I love are, how the relationship with God and Abraham is so. very. real. I love that God speaks a "timeline" to Abraham pertaining to when He will have a son.
"About this time next year you will have a son..."
And he not only says it once, but twice, almost as if to confirm to Abraham. Because we're like that right? In our human-ness. We hear God, but we seek confirmation. I like it that God OFTEN gives confirmation.
I also like that Abraham could express his feelings to God. Negotiate even. For right after God speaks of Abe having a son, he then moves on to,
"and by the way, we're on our way to Sodom and Gomorrah, to, well, basically, destroy the city."
God had heard the cries of the victims there. The city was vile. Steeped in sin. God was going to see if it was indeed as bad as He thought it was, and if so...He was going to destroy it.
Abraham literally steps in front of God and begins saying,
"but what if there are GOOD people in this bad city?? Will you save it on behalf of the good people???"
If you've never read this, believe me, it's worth the read. click here.
Long story short, God says that yes, if he finds good people there, He'll save the city.
However, He gets there, and it's just as bad as He thought it was. He destroys the city. All but Lot, Abraham's nephew, and Lot's wife and two daughters.
God tells Lot to gather his wife and daughters, get out of the city, head to the mountains, and don't look back. Lot, however, is too fearful to go to the mountains. So, he "negotiates" with God to seek protection in a nearby town instead. On the way to that town, Lot's wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt. So, she's gone. And oddly enough, even though they went to the nearby city, in the end, they end up in the mountains anyway.
In the mountains, the two daughters fear that their family line will end, for it is just the two of them and their father living in a cave. SO, they come up with this wise plan to get their dad drunk, sleep with him and become pregnant so that their family line will continue. One daughter gave birth to a son and named him Moab, the ancestor of the Moabites. The other daughter had a son and named him Ben Ammi, the ancestor of the Ammonites.
Here are the things I ponder. Mull over. Wonder about.
Abraham "standing" in the way of God and "negotiating" as God heads to Sodom and Gomorrah. If not for Abraham would God have saved Lot? For it says this in Genesis 19:
29...and that's the story; when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he was mindful of Abraham and first got Lot out of there before He blasted those cities off the face of the Earth.
and if Lot would have just had the faith to head to the mountains first, instead of negotiating to go to the other nearby town, might things have ended up different for Him? God, after all, was SAVING him. Delivering him from imminent destruction and he didn't trust him to go where he was telling him to go???
Which brings up another great point; even when God is offering us a way out, it takes faith to take it!!!
So, because of Abe, God saves Lot, but in the end, Lot's daughter's sleep with their Dad and give birth to the Moabites and Ammonites who then become two of Israel's (Abraham's) greatest enemies.
In summary. Though we CAN negotiate with God, does it always end up to our benefit to do so?
What if we choose NOT to negotiate. What if we just choose to trust Him. To trust His ways. To bow to His sovereignty. Even when we're scared. Fearful. Frightened. What if we just trust Him, knowing that He is for us and not against us and that He'll do the right thing.
Would our lives perhaps, just perhaps, be messed up less if we choose to stay out of His way, instead of stand in His way?
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