Trusting God: Abraham's Story

**Reposted from September 7, 2010**
For the past few weeks I have come across people, myself included, who have every reason to feel like God has forgotten or failed them, but as I went back and looked at this blog from 2010, I received a new burst of faith to trust God!  There are actually three posts in the series, starting with the one shared earlier this week...Trusting God.  As I read these posts again, I felt compelled to share them with you all.  I hope that you are blessed by them!

When we first meet Abraham, he is not some strapping young boy itching to go out and conquer the world!  He was in fact, seventy-five years old.  From the beginning of their relationship, God made Abraham many precious promises and the scripture says that Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.  Simply by believing that God was who He said He was and that He would do what He said that He would do, Abraham was deemed righteous.  This always amazes me.  I think about this man who at seventy-five years of age received a promise that he and his sixty-five year old wife would become parents and he believed God.  Even when it took twenty-five years for this promise to come to pass, the bible tells us that Abraham staggered not at the promise.  Are you kidding me?  There are promises that I have received from God and I'm no where near twenty-five years in my waiting yet there are days that I feel myself begin to stagger!  Sometimes I wonder if Abraham is up in heaven shaking his head at staggering, untrusting me.  Abraham was obviously some special brand of person right?  No, not really!  Abraham was a man who was able to see the promise in the light of the God who was making the promise.  He did not minimize God while maximizing his limitations.  Abraham did not focus on--"I'm seventy-five, my wife is sixty-five and we've never been able to conceive a child!  How on earth can this happen for us now?"  We don't hear Abraham complaining at the five, ten, twenty year marks as he waited on God.  Abraham knew that the God who promised could be trusted to keep His promise.  At the end of his twenty-five year wait, Abraham at 100 years old fathered a son with his ninety year old wife Sarah!  What joy *sigh* life is good!!  Wait a minute, not so fast.  Just as the elderly parents were settling into domestic bliss with their young son, God asks Abraham to trust Him once again.  This time, He was asking for Abraham's son Isaac.  God asked Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice.  Can't you see Abraham's shoulders slump, and just imagine what he must have been thinking..."not again!" Yet Abraham gathered his son, his knife and the wood for the fire and set out to offer this sacrifice to God.  You're probably thinking as I am, "I'll bet he staggered then." Nope, not Abraham.  As they made their way to the place where they would make their sacrifice, Isaac questioned his father, "I see the wood, but where is the sacrifice?"  Abraham's response, "God will provide the sacrifice."  And what does God do?  Just as Abraham raised his knife to kill his son, the Angel of the Lord called out and stopped him.  Abraham looked and God had in fact provided a sacrifice in the form of a ram.  Why on earth would God make Abraham wait twenty-five years for a son then ask him to offer that son as a sacrifice to Him?  The answer is really kind of simple.  God loves us so much that there is nothing and no one that He would not give for us.  John 3:16 tells us, " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life."  God wanted Abraham and us to know that He is prepared to do anything to have us with Him forever because He loves us so much; and what He asks of us is that we love Him so much that we are willing to trust Him with every single thing in our lives.  When we magnify things in our lives, job situations, family situations, whatever the case, we are not trusting God and therefore we are not loving Him.  We don't have to be spiritual giants when we get into a tough place in our lives.  We just have to look at our tough place in the light of who our God is.  Can you trust God with your physical health?  Absolutely!  Can you trust Him with your finances in these troubled economic times?  Without a doubt!  Can you trust Him with your children, your husband or wife?  Without fail!  If we learn anything from Abraham's story it should be that we can trust God.  There is not a timeline with God, just know that He will keep His promise.  There is nothing too hard for God, He will show up in the midst of our situation and bring us peace and provision.  That being said, let's take a deep breath, gather our sacrifice and head out--simply trusting that the Lord will provide...whatever!! 

Keep looking to the hills dearly loved ones!

Evangelist Carolyn

Trusting God

I have been saved for 17 years now, and during that time, God had done some amazing things for me!  Things that give me reason to trust Him even in the most difficult times, yet I recently discovered in my spiritural walk that there are in fact times that I do not trust Him at all.  Shocking huh?  Yet when I study the scripture I see that I am in good company.  The prophet Elijah was a mighty man of God.  Elijah prayed and God did not send rain for three years.  Elijah gathered the people together and challenged the prophets of baal to see whose god would answer by fire.  The prophets of baal called on their god all day without a response.  When it was Elijah's turn to call on God he had the people to drench the sacrafice, the altar and the surrounding area with water.  Then Elijah called on God and He answered by fire, consuming the sacrifice and the water.  Elijah then killed the prophets of baal, prayed for God to send the rain again and outran King Ahab's chariot down the mountain when the rain began to fall.  Elijah knew that God would answer him.  He knew that he could trust God.  Why then did Elijah run scared when he got a message from Jezebel that she was going to kill him?  Why did this mighty prophet of God find himself hiding in a cave with God asking him the question, "What are you doing here Elijah?"  Why do we run scared?  We have evidence of God's faithfulness.  We know His track record in our lives and then we get the doctor's report, the pink slip from our job, a child put in harms way, a marriage in a mess and we run to our cave.  Jesus tells us "In the world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer I have overcome the world."  What Jesus was saying is that He took away the world's ability to destroy us.  Even when it gets hard and there seems to be no way out, God sees us.  He knows what we're going through and He is willing and able to move in our situation...even when it doesn't seem that way.  So what do we do when we come up against our Jezebel and God finds us hiding in our cave?  First of all repent for failing to trust that He is good and that He has a good plan for your life.  Then remind yourself of all the times that God has shown Himself faithful to you.  And when He speaks to you in the cave and asks, "What are you doing here?"  You can say, "I'm waiting on You to move!"  That being said, if anybody needs me...I'll be in the cave!! 
Keep looking to the hills dearly loved ones our God is on the Throne and He is going to move! 
Originally posted August 30, 2010