Lent, Day 9: GOD IS GOD AND THAT IS ENOUGH

Scripture:  Romans 4:1-12

Focus on the Word

Abraham was 75 years of age and his wife, Sarah, was 65 years of age, when God told him that he and Sarah were to become parents.  It was a staggering promise and it could have prompted a hundred questions.  At this late date in his life, Abraham was going to have a son, and through that son his descendants would become numerous almost beyond comprehension.   Upon hearing the incredible promise, as mind-blowing as it was, “Abraham believed God” (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3, NASB). God accepted Abraham’s belief and “it was credited to Him as Righteousness.”

Is God free in us to stretch our imagination and enlarge our way of thinking and being, so that God can dream God-size dreams in us?  God will not ask of us what He asked of Abraham but He is God and His ways of being in the world are rooted in Sovereignty.  Through Isaiah He said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways…for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts that your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Perhaps, in Lent (if not everyday of our lives), we ought to seek God on His terms.  What are His terms?  In the Abraham story he is asked the question, “Is anything too difficult for the Lord” (Genesis 15:14, NASB). The correct answer was NO; and a year after the question was asked, Sarah had a baby boy.    

What are God’s terms?  Believe in God’s integrity, trusting Him to keep His Word.  Live in a humility founded on God’s integrity, and then relying on Him.  Living one day at a time, knowing that God is here, leading and guiding and directing.  He has caught us up into His story, and when that happens, His ways and means, by faith, become our ways and means.  He is God, and that is enough for us.

Today’s Prayer

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  

(The Book of Common Prayer)