July 29, 2022
The Almost Daily will be on Summer Vacation until August 8th. But fear not! You will receive a devotional each Monday through Friday from the excellent Mockingbird Devotional entitled Daily Grace. Enjoy! - Paul Walker
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you...” 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. (Genesis 12:1-4)
Perhaps you remember the classic Saturday Night Live skit, “Bad Idea Jeans.” In a parody of a now-forgotten Dockers commercial, several men casually stretch their legs as the camera zooms in on their pants. We overhear their conversation, a series of laughably terrible ideas.
“We’re gutting our apartment. Ripped up the floors, pipes, wiring—having everything completely redone!”
“You’re renting right?”
“Yeah.”
BAD IDEA flashes on the screen.
Second only to the eating of a certain apple, the Calling of Abram ranks as the original Bad Idea of the Bible. Uprooting at the age of 75—a time of life when most people are moving closer to their kin, not farther away—would have been daunting enough. But to do so in the hopes of conceiving a child, even without the infertility that had long afflicted Abram’s wife Sarah... Well, “foolish” would be a nice way to put it.
Still, Abram takes God at his word.
Essayist Andrew Sullivan once defined faith as “a long sacrifice of pride.” In reference to the thief on the cross, psychologist Frank Lake called faith “a desperate gaze in a counterintuitive direction.” In the Calling of Abram we see another aspect of what it means to live by faith: to doubt what seems obviously true about you. What the world considers a bad idea may, when seen through the eyes of faith, turn out to be anything but.
And yet, before we make Abram into an exemplar, his faith proves as short-lived as his patience. Before the end of the chapter, he’s spinning lies about his wife, and soon he’ll give up waiting on God and, with Hagar, take matters into his own hands.
Time and again, Abram doubts God’s promise of provision. And yet, time and again, just as He does with us, God takes Abram by the hand and reminds him of the promises that will never waver, however frail Abram’s faith in them may be. His blessing was poured out on the weak-willed then, just as it is today. Thank God for bad ideas!
[David Zahl, Daily Grace - Mockingbird Devotional Vol. 2]
