The first step YHWH takes Abraham through is just good old plain obedience. He tells Abraham to leave his homeland and “go to the land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). And “Abram left” (4). Step one, obedience, successfully completed.
Step two, however – “from obedience to trust” – takes a while longer, the best part of three chapters. But after YHWH gets Abraham out of the hole he’s dug for himself in Egypt (12:17), and helps him win a major battle against a powerful coalition of kings (14:13-20), and takes him outside to count the stars as proof he’ll have many offspring despite having no children at present, Abraham “believed the Lord” (15:6). Add trust, then, to his obedience. Step two successfully completed.
Three chapters later we see what trust then led to, when YHWH (along with two others) “appeared to Abraham while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day” (18:1). A hot, hazy day, time for a relaxed nap. But when Abraham catches sight of three men nearby he immediately “hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground” (2) – because he knew who the leader of the three was, addressing him in verse 3 as “my Lord” (adonai in Hebrew, the deeply reverent title for YHWH).
So what Abraham does next is amazing. He begs the mighty Lord to take a rest in the shade of a tree while water is brought to wash his feet (4). He then rushes off, yelling to Sarah, “Quick, make and bake some bread” (6), and then he rushes out to “select a choice tender calf” for some meat to go with the bread (7). Which must’ve taken several hours to bake and cook. But every minute worth it to Abraham, because what a great way he could express his love for his Lord by refreshing him on a hot day (5). Which made me wonder if YHWH set things up this way just for that purpose.
Imagine Abraham’s pleasure when it was all prepared and ready and he stood watching nearby “while they ate” (8). From obedience to trust, YHWH had now brought Abraham to love too. Step three.
Does YHWH engineer circumstances for us as Abraham’s offspring to bring us to love too, then? Yes, 1 John 4:17, which states “Love is made complete in us” – just as love, step three, was being made complete in Abraham.
But “Imagine being Sarah” too….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 