abraham believed God...

Our lesson for our Bible time today was about Abraham and his faith in God. It all started with God telling Abraham to leave his comfortable home where he lived with his family and take his wife and go...just GO...no directions. He promised He would lead Abraham and show him, but he first had to get up and go without knowing where he was going. Yikes! An incredible amount of faith that had to take. I always try to imagine that being me of course and the difficulty that would be, and yet...we are given those same circumstance everyday really. Are we going to trust God even when all of the directions are not clear? And then ultimately, are we going to trust Him for some really big areas of our lives...really big ones when we just don't understand what He is doing?

I know several people going through some very difficult relationship issues right now who really thought and felt they were in the will of the Lord, only to have it crumble at their feet. The brokenness, pain, heartache is just awful and life can really stink sometimes. I remember walking through that myself at one time just really wondering what in the world God was doing. I was devastated and heartbroken and angry and frustrated. I didn't want my circumstances to change...I wanted them to stay exactly as they were. I remember telling God that...yep...I really did. I so, so remembering him speaking to me as I knelt back against a bed, sitting on the floor, bawling my eyes out. He said, "Kristen, you can keep (that situation) and I will bless it, but it is not My best." As crazy as it still sounds, I remembering wrestling with the thought of how bad it would really be if I didn't allow the Lord to change me. Human nature I am sure! 

It was not all at once and it was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I chose to "believe God" and I handed over another area of my life to Him. I had to believe and trust Him in a way I never had before...in a way I had never had to. 

Years later I can look back and see the hand of God on my life during a really crappy time. I am really glad I chose to "believe" Him and know that I could only see a part of the picture He was painting for my life. I am blessed beyond measure...truly...and I absolutely do not take one day of my life for granted. I am so, so, so grateful for my family and the change of circumstances He brought about. Turns out, He is better at it than I am. ;)

God took Abraham and had him look up at the stars and promised him that his descendants and family would be more numerous than those stars. The only problem was...he had no children...pretty big problem if your family is supposed to be really big. :) God and His sense of humor!! But...Abraham made the choice to believe God in some crazy circumstances and God did bless him with a son...baby Isaac. And his descendants were numerous and eventually led to the birth of Jesus. God knew what he was doing.

I tried to condense this and "feed" it to my children today. :) Addison colored a picture of Abraham looking up at the stars and we memorized Romans 4:3 "Abraham believed God."

 

 

Payton chose to eat one of the crayons used to color good, ole Abraham.

They may not have gotten all of the message, but they understand that Abraham had to do something really hard and that God knew all along what He was doing.

The choice is ultimately 'Are we going to believe God?'