I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. – Genesis 13:16

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 2, 2012): Genesis 13

I seem to be naturally impatient. I want the things I want and I want them now. I guess deep down I am still just a two year old kid trying to find his way in the world. Sometimes I feel like I am fighting in a fog between two points – where I know that I am and the place that I want to be. I mean, I know where it is that I want to go, and I can see where I am, but what I have trouble seeing is the path that lies in between those points. Again, it is like I am a child who sees who he or she wants to be when they grow up, but are really too young to accurately see the path that they need to take. And that is just more evidence that I am really just a two year old deep down inside.

And maybe that is just part of the human condition - and also why faith is so hard. Faith asks us to step out to follow a dream when we can’t really see the path. Faith asks us to be content in the place where we stand but challenges us to reach beyond where we can see. And that is exactly where Abram stood.

There is no doubt that God had given Abram a promise. Abram was told that God was going to bless him – and then he was told exactly how that blessing would happen. He would become the father of many people – in fact, there would be nations that would claim him as father. And the promise that God gave to Abram has become a reality. Today, there are many people groups that call Abraham (the name that Abram would take on later in life) their father, both those that know that they have really descended from Abraham and those that claim that honor because they have put their faith in Abraham’s God. But at the time that the promise was made, the outcome seemed unlikely. It wasn’t that Abram only had a few descendants – at the time of the promise, Abram had no descendants.

Abram had to play the part of the two year old. He simply believed the promise that God had made even though he couldn’t see the outcome that God was promising. In fact, he would never really see the outcome – that wouldn’t become a reality until many generations had passed. But still Abram believed.

And in the end, that is all that God asks of me – that I would believe.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 14