Wednesday, December 10

Scripture: And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6). 

Observation: The “he” and “him” is Abram. He’s not yet Abraham, meaning “father of many nations.” He’s still Abram, meaning “exalted father.” By this point in the Genesis narrative, Abram has already left his home country, Ur of the Chaldeans, and migrated, along with his wife Sarai, to what will become the Promised Land. He has fled famine and settled in Egypt, as his grandson Jacob will do. Once the economy bounced back, Abram left Egypt and made the return trip to the Promised Land, as his descendants, a nation of freed slaves, will do. Abram has led a long and full life already, but his deepest desire is unfulfilled: he is childless. He and Sarai have struggled with infertility their entire married life. Earlier in Genesis 15, Abram pleads to God for a son, and God answers. God tells Abram to count the stars in a clear night sky, so will the number of Abram’s descendants be: more than can possibly be counted, for the universe, like Abram’s family tree, is still expanding. But more extraordinary, and perhaps more unbelievable, is the fact that Abram believes God with zero proof that he and Sarai will actually be able to bear children in their old age. Abram simply believes. Period. God reckons – an old-sounding word meaning “credits” – Abram’s belief as proof of Abram’s righteousness, yet another old-sounding word, this time meaning “this person is living right.” In other words, the thing that led God to say, “this person knows what it means to live rightly” is pure, simple belief. Abram wanted proof from God that God would do what God said he would do, but God flips the script. God wanted proof from Abram that Abram would do what God wants him to do – to live rightly on earth – and Abram passed because Abram believed. 

Application: God wants to see proof that I will do what God wants me to do. God wants me to live rightly on earth, which I know means living and loving like Jesus. God gives me free will. I have total agency to live rightly or to be a plain jerk. I can be a blessing to the people God has put into my life, yet equally in my power is the daily choice to be a curse, to make people’s lives and God’s creation worse. I can be part of the building of the Kingdom of God on earth, or I can be part of the demolition. The choice is mine to make, mine alone- will I live and love like Jesus, or not? As with Abram, God wants to know if I will really and truly live rightly, and the one thing God is looking for isn’t something I do, it’s a posture of the heart: will I put my belief in God, that God’s ways are the best ways, or will I put my belief in me, that my way is the highway? I look to God for proof that God is going to do what I want God to do, but God flips the script. God is looking for proof from me. Will I live rightly on this earth while I draw breath? The one thing I must do isn’t an act of doing at all; it’s a turn of the heart away from myself and toward the One who flung the stars. Ultimately, belief is the direction of the heart pointed away from self and toward the source of identity of one’s choosing. Today, I choose the God of Jesus. 

Prayer:  

Age is teaching me that I have zero control over what has not happened yet,

    Agency to choose how I will respond to what happens, and

    Awe-full power over who I choose to be and how I will happen to creation,

    For that power is part of the image of God within me.

Awe-full God, I will leave tomorrow to tomorrow.

  Today I choose to believe in you.

   I’m sorry about yesterday. 

Today I choose where my heart will be pointed.  

You know I tend to turn the steering wheel    

    Inward, toward self and ambition and promotion,

    Leading to my life creeping down yet another wrong road.

    With every inch wrong-ward, it’s harder to turn back.  

You know the problem is less what I do, though you know I could do better,

    But the direction my heart is facing.

   How much of this wonderful life did I squander by staring my own self in the face?

   How much better would life be if I pivoted toward you?

 Away from self

    Is the way of stars, trees, children,

    The Teacher laid in the manger, then, because his heart pointed away,

    The tomb.

 Away from self

    Is the way the self lives rightly. 

Awe-full God, I will leave tomorrow to tomorrow.

  Today I choose to believe in you.

  I’m sorry about yesterday. 

Today I choose to throw my innermost being

     Back where it came from.

I am yours.   

I am your vessel.  

I am blessed to be broken-open in love.  

I am proof that God is not asleep.  

I am turning the wheel away from me and toward you.  

God help me: I am choosing to believe.