Genesis 20

A person God uses...

Previous post: Genesis 19

First off, sorry for the audio quality this week. I gave it a solid 10 minutes of trying to fix it before giving up hope and feeling old. I’ll try to do better next week. Fortunately for all of us, the ridiculous AI rap summary audio quality is top notch. You’re welcome. Anyhow, let’s dive into Genesis chapter 20.

“And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, ‘She is my sister.’ And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, ‘Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.’” (Genesis 20:2-3, ESV)

For the most part, the quote unquote “heroes of the Bible” aren’t often hero-like. They’re sometimes scared, sometimes cowardly, sometimes unfaithful, sometimes overly zealous, sometimes prone to amazing levels of blithering idiocy. And, every single one of them gives me hope for my future.

Here we have Abraham. This is a guy who God spoke to directly. Not only that, but he had seen firsthand the powerful justice of God…and not like many decades before. Like, the previous chapter before. Also, it was only two chapters before this in which God promised him a son. In fact, in Genesis 18:10, God promised that approximately one year from then He would return and Sarah would have a son. Did Abraham march forward in faith, comfort, obedience, and overwhelming joy for the forthcoming year? No. He feared for his life to the point that he lied about his wife being his sister. Then, Abimelech took her. Did Abraham speak up and try to prevent his wife from being taken away? Nope. Well, at least the Bible doesn’t mention it if he does. He seemingly just let her go. Reminder: this is the same guy who, back in Genesis 14, courageously took 318 men and chased after/defeated an army who had taken his nephew, Lot. So, if I’m reading this correctly…Abraham’s nephew gets taken and he boldly chases down an army to free him. His wife gets taken and he’s like, “Welp, that’s unfortunate. Hope I see her again someday.”

And, this guy is the patriarch of patriarchs.

Here’s my takeaway from this. 1) It is human nature to doubt the promises of God. Time and time again in the Bible you see regular, ordinary people who God uses in spite of their monumental mess ups. 2) God is faithful with his end of the deal. He doesn’t say, “Well, I told you Sarah would have a baby in a year; but that deal is off now. I’ll go find someone else to be the patriarch of patriarchs who has more faith in me.” No, God follows through. He tells his story through the faithful and the faithless. The strong and the weak. The child and the orphan. The captive and the free. Jews, Egyptians, Romans, Greeks. Women and men. Children and elderly. Blind and lame. On that note, if we ever doubt the beauty of diversity, we need only look at the people God chose to tell his story through. God tells his perfect story through imperfect people. To me, that’s the subtle message here. This isn’t the story of Abraham learning some lessons and becoming a hero for the ages that we should all model our lives after. This is the story of God’s perfect grace, mercy, peace, hope, and love as told through a doubting little human. And, if God can tell his story so powerfully through a guy like Abraham, perhaps he can tell a pretty powerful story with me as well. Perhaps he can tell a pretty powerful story with you, too. Did you mess up monumentally this week? I bet you didn’t willingly let your wife be trafficked to a foreign land. Give yourself some grace. It isn’t the end of your story. It might just be the beginning.

This week’s AI rap summary: