what on earth is God thinking?

I am reading through Genesis at the moment, and getting ready to preach about Abraham on Sunday. And I never cease to be amazed at what a goober he is. It is so odd and wondrous to look at the biblical accounts of people like Abram and and realize that all throughout history, God has been putting up with people’s crap.

We’re not just talking about crap from people in general here; I think we kind of assume that. We’re talking about crap from those we consider “giants of the faith”! This man Abram has been called and chosen to found God’s chosen people, through whom God will bless the world and demonstrate his love, and at the first recorded sign of adversity, he demonstrates that he’s a total weasel! (See Genesis 12:10-20 for the details.) I could get into all the details of the story, but you’ll have to just read it for yourself. Suffice it to say that Abram deceives a pagan king and sells his wife into a harem. And what does God do?

He scoops Abram up, drops Sarai back in his lap, and dropkicks them out of Egypt and back towards the promised land … complete with the additional wealth Abram had picked up in Egypt. And although the Bible is silent on this point, I think we can be quite certain that was not the last Abram heard about that from his wife. And he deserved everything he did and didn’t get for quite some time afterwards.

But why would God do this? Actions like this would certainly disqualify anyone from leadership in most evangelical churches. And this is the man God is going to use to found his chosen nation?!

God had a mission for Abram. He had a higher calling. The reason he scooped Abraham out of Egypt safely was not because Abraham deserved it, but because God had better things for Abraham to be doing. What a bizarre and comforting story.