Abram has a vision of God saying, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
Instead of just accepting this, Abram questions God about his childlessness. He doesn’t understand how the promise of having countless descendants can be fulfilled without even having one kid. What gives?
Now that his nephew Lot is off in Sin City, Abram’s only living relative is Eliezer of Damascus. God reassures him that it will not be that man, but his own son will be his heir. God tells Abram to look at the stars. “So shall your offspring be.”
Abram believes him, but asks how it will be. God tells him to bring a goat, ram, dove and pigeon. Abram sacrifices the animals and cuts them in half. The sun sets, and Abram falls asleep.
In a dream, the Lord tells Abram his descendants will go to Egypt and serve them for four hundred years, but he will live and die in peace. Then the Egyptians will be punished, and his descendants will come back to the land in the fourth generation (century?) because the sins of the Amorites are not yet complete. Finally, Abram and has a vision of a fire pot and torch passing between the pieces.
God makes a covenant with Abram for all of the land from the Nile to the Euphrates, and ten lands currently inhabited by other people groups.
In this section, Abram asks and God answers. It’s bigger, scarier, and more complicated than Abram expects. Yes, he will have the son he desires, but then his progeny will be slaves for 400 years. Only after that, they will get their land, but not until after the Amorites complete their own path of destruction.
Often, we not only want reassurance of good results, but also all the steps between. If you told me twenty years ago where I would be now, I would have been happy. How I actually got here was anything but a straight line. I didn’t marry the first guy I dated, or settle in the first town I moved to, or keep the job I went to college for, or have two kids easy peasy. There were heart breaks and losses and many moves. Perhaps, some of my story wasn’t even about me.
I suspect there’s a lot more to come, but do I want to know the details?
