When Sarah died Abraham was “now old and well advanced in years,” Genesis 24:1. Amazingly, he still had another 38 years to go, but up to this point in his life “the Lord had blessed him in every way.”
Really? But Abraham had been uprooted from his homeland, lived as a foreigner and travelling nomad in a strange culture, nearly lost his wife to an Egyptian Pharaoh, was banished from the safety and plenty of Egypt for lying, gave up the best land in Canaan to his nephew, had to save his nephew by going to war against a bully king and his cronies, be scolded by his wife for Hagar despising her, be circumcised in his eighties, have a newborn son at age 100, witness a city so depraved that God totally destroyed it, got himself into deep trouble twice with a powerful king, had to throw his much loved oldest son out of the family home to keep the peace with his wife, was told by God to sacrifice his other son, and then have Sarah die long before he did.
So how was he “blessed in every way” with that lot in his life story? Well, it’s in how God defines “blessed.” Because two great things happened to Abraham: he ended up in an amazing relationship with God and an amazing relationship with his neighbours. He obeyed, trusted and loved God, and that relationship rubbed off in how he treated other people.
God had also promised Abraham that his life would be a blessing (12:2), not just for himself but for his offspring all through the ages to come, and here we are now having Abraham’s blessings rubbing off on us. Because at the heart of his story is what God is after in all of us: it’s experiencing his “kindness and faithfulness” (24:27). Because our lives are much like Abraham’s. We too live in a culture that has little to no fear of God (20:11), but God somehow keeps our heads above water, gets us out of some nasty scrapes, spares us from making a real hash of our relationships, puts up with our stupidity and self-deception, brings us up short when we’re stepping out of line, and gets the point across in our messy lives that he loves us and he cares.
Because that’s what he did in Abraham’s life, and what was written about his life was “also for us” (Romans 4:23-24). In other words, what God did in Abraham’s life story and what was produced from it, is exactly what God is producing in our life stories. It’s a promise, that we too will be blessed in every way that Abraham was. So with that in mind, can we legitimately ask God – as someone did in Genesis 24 – “Give me success today”?….(next blog)
