Every time a flight departs the Captain and First Officer sign a release stating that they have accepted the responsibility of safely flying the passengers to their destination. In our analysis of determining if we can safely operate the flight, we are accessing our own physical state, the flight plan, weather, and the airworthiness of the aircraft. You could view the release as the signature page in the flight plan and a contract the pilot is making with the dispatcher, airline, FAA, and ultimately the passengers.
A Contract Between God and Abraham
This concept of a contract recently came to my mind when I was reading Genesis 15. It is a beautiful story of God making a covenant with Abraham. The first few verses establish the desperate situation in which Abraham finds himself. God had called Abraham out of his homeland decades before because God promised Abraham that He would make Abraham into a great nation. Now, Sarah is well beyond childbearing age and Abraham has no descendants. He fears that all his possessions will essentially be given to his servant, Eliezer. Abraham also thought he would gain possession of the lands belonging to the Amorites to establish this great nation, yet he here he is living as a nomad in a tent. Things aren’t playing out according to Abraham’s expectations.
This reminded me of how often I become impatient or frustrated that the life God promised is not playing out according to my failed and fractured perspective and expectations. God is always playing the long game because most of the time there is so much more to His story. And more importantly, there are so many other actors in God’s unfolding drama that need “character development.”
The Unthinkable
Next, we see God do the unthinkable. He asks Abraham to go and bring Him an offering and asks Abraham to cut the offering into two halves. Abraham faithfully obeys, and in the next scene Abraham is drifting off into a deep sleep. In this dream, God gives Abraham incredible details of the future of the nation He is creating through Abraham, spanning four generations. Once again, we see God playing the long game. After the end of this amazing revelation, God shatters the conventional idea of a covenant. During this period, when two parties made a covenant, both parties would walk side by side through the space between the two halves of the offering. It symbolized to each party that should the other fail to honor the covenant, then they would be cut into two just like the offering.
This is quite a commitment and much different than our current method of signing a document or shaking hands. In Abraham’s dream, do you know who walked through these two halves of the sacrifice? God alone did, and Abraham witnessed it from the sidelines. In essence, God was telling Abraham that He would be the one who would uphold the covenant even if Abraham failed his end of the bargain. It is a beautiful picture of God’s faithfulness and sovereignty. It is also a foreshadowing of Jesus because God paid the ultimate price of this failed covenant watching His precious and sinless Son take the punishment for Abraham and us.
What Does This Mean for You and Me?
What does this mean to us today and how does it impact our daily decisions and attitudes? To me, it is a reminder to do everything as unto the Lord with excellence and a high standard of integrity (2 Peter 3:11-14); but ultimately, I’m going to make mistakes as I go about my day. Goodness knows Abraham did as did the rest of the “heroes” of the Bible. God knows this and will uses these mistakes to develop our character if we come back to Him with repentant and contrite hearts. Most importantly, it is a reminder that I am not the one ultimately responsible for how things play out in His unfolding “drama.” We live like it depends on us, but we pray knowing that He alone is powerful enough to do what we can’t.
