Genesis 18

Abraham welcomes three visitors to his tent; said visitors turn out to be God and two of His angels. After partaking in a scrumptious feast of bread, milk, cheese, and veal (verse 7 of the NIV uses the euphemism "prepare" to describe the slaying of the calf), the visitors once again remind Abraham of the promise to him. This time, though, they give a specific time frame: Sarah will bear a son within the next  year.

I don't know whether Abraham knew who the three visitors were beforehand, but it's a reminder that we must strive to be hospitable to everyone. They might not literally be God in disguise, but as Matthew 25:40 reminds us, showing compassion towards God's children reveals our love for God. I can be curt with those who get on my nerves, but I know I have to show them God's love.

When Sarah hears the news about her child in the offing, she laughs in disbelief. God confronts her about this, she repudiates His allegation, and He in turn smacks her down. On the one hand, I'm tempted to wonder why you would lie to God. Think about it: When you lie to a human who knows the truth, you're just digging your own grave deeper and deeper in their eyes. Well, God, unlike us, always knows the truth and, as the one perfect being, He can't abide sin. Although I do probably lie to God, I more often try to ignore Him--but isn't evasion a kind of lie as well? That's also one of the reasons it can be so tempting to distance myself from God: If I'm not close to Him, then I don't have to deal with his disappointment when I screw up or don't act in a Christ-like manner. But that's just so incredibly selfish, and it's something I'm trying (with God's help, of course) to change.

God decides He's going to smite Sodom and Gomorrah in the best Old Testament tradition, but Abraham starts bargaining with Him. He asks God (with the proper deference) to not destroy the cities if there are 50 righteous people, then whittle it down to 10. Spoiler alert: Sodom and Gomorrah end up getting barbecued, so it's likely that Lot and his family members were the only righteous people in Sodom. Did Abraham need to do this to remind God that He is fair in His judgment? Probably not, but God may have wanted Abraham to develop his own sense of judgment through his arguments. That would sound remarkably patronizing of God if He were human, but He's not. And, of course, there was no reason for Him to send Jesus down to die for our sins.

In a world where (and this is not the intro to a movie trailer) some virtuous people get murdered or stricken with awful diseases and some evildoers get away unscathed, it can be hard to believe that God doesn't punish the righteous along with the wicked. Yes, this world is temporary, and the ultimate judgment will occur once our earthly bodies die, but that can seem so abstract and irrelevant while we're mired here in this world. I myself often get caught up in the distractions and troubles of this world. Needless to say, we shouldn't ignore everything in this world, but since our time here is temporary, we need to do what we can while we have the opportunity. Everyone needs to hear the good news of Christ, and I pray that God will light a fire within me, giving me the impetus to carry out whatever He has planned for me.