So Attached

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not given birth to any children, but she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “Since the LORD has prevented me from having children, please sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have a family by her.” Abram did what Sarai told him.

Genesis 16:1-5

Can we be so attached to God’s promises and the way we interpret their meaning that we try to make them happen on our own?

In serving the Lord among the nations for over thirty years, I have observed something fascinating: God’s heart is always for the nations.

That promise-invitation I was given about my future when I was nine, sitting in a small country church in the Appalachian mountains, was about the nations.

I understand that as a little girl who wanted nothing more than to be good, the appeal of serving God in Africa looked indisputably good.

And it was about me, in one way. God loved a little girl enough to show her she had value in His big plan.

But His big, big plan was for the nations.

The promise we’ve heard again and again that those in prison for their faith right now are God’s arrows, polished and concealed, destined to bring God glory, is wracked with pain and agony as we near two years without release.

The promise is about them in one way. They are seen and known by God, and their purpose on earth is profound. But the promise is about the nations.

The promise-instruction I was given to write my first book was all about me, sure! I wrote it. 

But that book was about the nations and for the nations, a tool for those among the unreached and unengaged who have not yet heard the Good News. That book circled the earth even as I was sidelined by family tragedy.

God’s promise to Abram was about Abram in one way. God said, after all, “I will bless you…I will make your name great…” (see Genesis 12:2).

But Abram’s promise was “so that all the families of the earth shall receive blessing through you” (see Genesis 12:3). That’s a whopper of a promise to a single human being.

We are finite. We are limited. We respond to the infinity of God with boundaried minds and bodies. So we received His immeasurable promise and relate it to our measurable selves.

And His promises are about us in one way. The truest thing about us is that God loves us.

But that does not give us license to attach ourselves to ourselves in the promises He gives. God’s promises always lead to the nations. He wants all His children to come Home.

What if we practiced looking for the nations in every promise?

Just wondering.

Lord, forgive me for being so attached to your promises that I forget the nations. Amen.

@audreycfrank

 

Photo by Юлія Дубина on Unsplash