It is much easier at the beginning of God’s call on our lives for we have yet to know all that we will need to be, do, provide, give, endure, protect, and conquer as overcomers with God in this world to fulfill His call.  We are giddy with excitement at first, just knowing that God, the Creator of the all, is inviting us to join Him in His work!  But as the days go by in actually doing what He asks; we wonder how will God’s will be accomplished in and through us as opposition builds against us as a response. Spiritual warfare is no “walk in the park” and is unavoidable.   

What if we don’t have what it takes to do all that God asks us to be and do?  The work can become so overwhelming, so incredibly hard to accomplish, with seemingly no way for certain things to happen given certain conditions, that we fall prey, like roadkill for crows, to being eaten alive in the process of fulfilling what God said would happen in and through us. Before it happens; we wonder.  Are we on the right road?  Are we getting closer?  Is it possible to even get there?

Abram is at this place on the journey with God.  Abram’s faith needs reassuring by the God who called him to leave home and all that he knew as “normal” behind him to follow God to a new land that is already occupied by all the “ites” who live there.  The call of God doesn’t make sense at the moment, especially to childless Abram so he asks for assurance—that blessed assurance—that can only come from God who called him.

Genesis 15

The Lord’s Covenant With Abram

15 After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.
    I am your shield,
    your very great reward.”

² But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inheritmy estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

⁴ Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” ⁵ He took him 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.”

⁶ Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

⁷ He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

⁸ But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

⁹ So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. ¹¹ Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

¹⁷ When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰ Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹ Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

God knows our hearts and knows what is on our minds.  Before Abram even asks for assurance, God begins the conversation with; “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” I love that about God, don’t you?  He knows our need before we express it.  He knows what’s on our minds before we say it out loud to Him.  This alone gives us confidence with assurance from our God who never leaves or forsakes us and is with us always—even to the very end of the age!

Our blessed assurance expands exponentially through Jesus.  Jesus, Son of God, came to earth, moved into the neighborhood of humanity, and demonstrated God’s love for us.  He showed the world how to commune, be one with God, listen for direction from God, follow what God says faithfully coupled with His relentless willingness to trust and obey God’s plan to save us!  It’s all verified and clarified in His prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray!  “May YOUR Kingdom come, May YOUR will be done…”

Lord,

Thank you for these thoughts that compel us to think beyond the words written to the deeper message of your love for us that prompted your gift of salvation.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for saving us, teaching us, and being with us always. May your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  I’m yours.

In Jesus Name, Amen