Genesis 15

The Lord formalizes his covenant with Noah, promising him the land and descendants He had mentioned earlier. In verse 1, God states in a concise, tweet-length poem that He is Abram's "shield" (or sovereign) and "very great reward." Such blessed assurance from the benevolent Creator of the universe should be all that one needs, right? But even Abram has his misgivings, noting the lack of little Abrams and Sarais running around. Later on, he will propound his own solution to this little dilemma, but at this point, we can tell that Abram is well on his way down this thorny road.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, few of us hear audible commands from God, but we do know that, if we accept His son as our Savior, He will be our shield and sovereign as well. I have yet to hear God give me any specific promises or fortunes ("Tomorrow, you will slip on a banana peel discarded by Tom Hanks"), yet I suspect I would respond as Abram did, doubting and trying to take matters into my own hands. Though I pray for spiritual discernment, part of me is frightened that God might tell me to do something that I won't like. In fact, in order to make me grow, it's almost guaranteed that He'll tell me to do something way outside my comfort zone. Writing these posts has been a leap of faith, but it's not a major life change. I'm not wasting as much time as I used to, but that's about it. Am I willing to endure the ordeals that will spur my spiritual growth? It's like that moldy chestnut of a lightbulb joke: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, but it has to really want to change. (If you don't like that little witticism, at least it's not mine.)

Abram bisects some animals (but not the birds) at God's behest. The author, for whatever reason, thought it really important to include the little detail in verse 11 about how Abram drove away the carrion birds who wanted to make a repast out of the carcasses.

But before God sends His Back to the Future Delorean fire trail through the halves of the animals, He sends Abram a prophecy of the Israelites' future bondage in Egypt and the subsequent Exodus. In addition, He promises that the wicked Amorites will get what's coming to them. (A short drop and a sudden stop?) I wonder if Abram, who will be long gone by the time his descendant Charlton Heston leads the Israelites out of the land of Yul Brynner, managed to pass this information down to his offspring, or if it ended up like a generations-long game of telephone. Maybe by the time Moses got the message, "Our people will be enslaved by Egypt for a while but will be set free," turned into "Our street will be paved by eagles and crocodiles but we'll get a pizza tree."

Just as few of us receive audible commands from God, not everyone has the gift of prophecy. But I do think God gives us information or guides our actions that will benefit others--and we'll never know it. In films or books, we get a sense of narrative satisfaction from such acts because the director or author can show us different characters' points of view. In reality, we're not omniscient--but God is. I hope this doesn't come across as too sententious, but when we let God guide our actions, there may be times when we don't think we're making a difference. But perhaps we are, and we'll never know the fruits of our actions until we arrive at our eternal home.