Helping God Out

 Debbie has been on call today, so it has been pretty quite on the home front as I and dog have worked to “hold down the fort.” I did some house cleaning to try to help out which is always good therapy. After lunch I made a quick trip to the neighborhood pool to get in some exercise before getting ready for our church service tonight.

The therapy and exercise that I am doing has been going well and I believe I can tell my strength is slowly recovering. If there is one area of specific prayer, it is for strength in my right leg. This is the leg I recall having some problems with even when hospitalized. My muscle deterioration exposed some of the nerves which created discomfort when I slept or was laying in a certain position. It was also the leg that I just could not move for the longest time lying in bed. At this point if the strength in my right leg matched my left I would be ready for the next level of rehab. It seems patience continues to be part of the plan. I try to remain thankful for where I am and patient with what is still in process.

BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… “He [God] took him [Abraham] outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  Genesis 15:5

As I am reading through Genesis once again and the life of Abraham, I have been reminding myself that Abraham did not have “the story of Abraham” to help encourage his faith and confidence in God. How fortunate we are to have the record of those God called and used in His plan. Individuals of courage and faith and trust. Yet even with that, we often have difficulty trusting God and taking Him at His Word and will try to “help Him out.”

God called Abraham; Abraham followed; Abraham believed God and God “counted his faith as righteousness.” Yet in the midst of it all Abraham just we do today, tried to figure out how God was going to do what He had said. As a result we see him trying to help God out.

God made His promise to Abraham and Abraham’s reply was “I don’t have children and that means my servant Eliezer will be my heir…” God had to say, “no, not your servant, a son of your own flesh and blood.” (Gen. 15:4)

Later Sarah was becoming worried and impatient; so she thought she would help God out and give her servant Hagar to Abraham to have children. Perhaps she reasoned, “God said the child would be Abraham’s flesh and blood but didn’t say anything about me!” We don’t know her reasoning other than being very much aware of her own aging body and trying to comprehend how this would all happen.

Years later we see the Angel visitors coming to Abraham and telling him, “at this time next year your wife will have a son.” Did Sarah rejoice in God’s promise coming true? No, she laughed. (Gen. 18:10-15)

God was demonstrating Himself to Abraham and Sarah as the God who does the impossible. God’s purposes are not accomplished through human means. Trusting God is believing that what He says will happen even though we don’t know when or how. If we knew the “when and how” it may seem so impossible it would make us laugh in unbelief.

Later when Isaac was born and God tested Abraham’s faith on Mount Moriah, we see Abraham obeying even when it did not make sense that God was asking him to offer the promised son as a sacrifice. Hebrews says, “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.” (11:17-19)

We see Abraham begins seeing the future from a divine perspective and not one of human reasoning. When things happen that I don’t understand, I am learning to rely on the One who does understand, and resist the temptation to help God out. How about you?