January 5, 2025 - Genesis 12

Genesis 12 . . . I think I have always focused on the opening verses and God’s covenant with Abram and, of course, the covenant stands out.  God is faithful, we know that.  God is faithful to work out the promise of Genesis 3:15.  But what of Abram?  We read that God told him to go,  So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.  Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran” (12:4).  There’s no sense, here, of hesitation or questioning on the part of Abram.  He immediately obeys, trusting God to lead him.  Only a few verses later, though, we find him cowering before the prospect of the Pharaoh murdering him and taking Sarai, his wife.  Abram concocts this story about Sarai not being his wife, seemingly not trusting God to take care of him.  He exhibits the same lack of faith in his and Sarai’s scheme with Hagar, later.  We are so much like Abram, our faith waxing and waning, our obedience running hot and cold.  But, though Abram was so vacillating and waffling in his faith, God was never so in his faithfulness.  In our God and his faithfulness – the God who never lies, who never changes, who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow – we find hope and assurance to live each day.

Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father;

There is no shadow of turning with thee.

Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;

As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.

Great is thy faithfulness,

Great is thy faithfulness,

Morning by morning new mercies I see.

All I have needed thy hand hast provided;

Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.   -- Thomas O. Chisholm (1923)