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But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. Genesis 25:33  (Genesis 23-25)

Sarah died and Abraham, an alien in a foreign land, bought a cave and a field for her burial. He and Isaac mourned her death. Today this cave is in a mosque under Muslim control. As the father of Ismael, Muslims hold Abraham in very high regard and Christians are not permitted to enter. In 1862 the Prince of Wales, by special permission, visited and saw the stone tombs of Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah and Leah. (Halley’s Bible Handbook, pg. 101) 

God’s covenant was dependent on a wife and children for Isaac. Abraham wanted to keep his family line free of idolatry, so he sent a trusted servant back to his own country to find a suitable mate. The servant prayed for God’s leading and wisdom and Rebekah returned to Canaan to marry Isaac. She was barren for twenty years and then gave birth to twins.  Esau the older, as his father’s heir, was entitled to birthright (money) and blessing (authority). However, he proved to be impulsive, reckless, willful and worldly. This combination cost him everything. During a fit of hunger he sold his birthright to his younger brother Jacob for some lentil soup and a piece of bread. 

It isn’t entitlement that creates destiny or blessing, it is the action of obedience or lack there of. In the deepest, most intimate and secret places of our heart and mind, God is there. By this we know He alone is a Perfect Judge, and Trustworthy Leader.

Peace and Blessings,

Gretchen

Abraham answered, “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. Genesis 22:8 (Genesis 21:22-22)

Isaac, the long anticipated, promised son, is growing into adulthood. AND THEN!!!!! It seems that God has chosen to jeopardize His own plan for a covenant nation. He is demanding that Abraham give his son back as a child-sacrifice. This chosen and called man has had many shortcomings in his behavior, and disobedience has not been without its consequences, but to kill one’s off-spring makes no sense!

The demand Abraham awoke to that morning was puzzling and frightening, but this time Abraham followed God’s instructions without question or hesitation.  At some point Abraham released the impulses of his earthly being and began to walk exclusively by faith, knowing that all the future was God’s and God was good.  God didn’t need Isaac’s death to satisfy Himself, He wanted Abraham to understand the strength of a steadfast certainty. The History of the world rested on this defining moment.

God is not a God of pointless, ridiculous penance. What we relinquish and what we are given to keep are designed to purify and perfect our hearts and our relationship with our Loving Protector and Provider. When a faithful God and faithful man stand together……….the world is forever changed!

Love,

Gretchen

P.S.  It is worth noting in chapter 21:8-20, that God shows kindness to Hagar, the slave, and her son and outcast child, Ismael. They have both been tossed and toiled at the whim of others, but God loves and provides. 

Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”  Genesis 21:6 (Genesis 21-1-7)

Sarai/Sarah is known as ‘Abraham’s wife,’ barren and childless. In straight terms, Sarah is insignificant. In order to protect himself, Abraham twice asks beautiful Sarai to title herself as his sister, (which she was) and submit bodily to a ruler of a foreign state. The Bible doesn’t say how she felt, but betrayal and violation must have passed through her mind. Both times, God intervened and saved Sarah while inflicting pain and discomfort on her offenders.

Common culture allowed Sarah to give her handmaiden, Hagar, to her husband in order to secure a child and family line, but having done this with Abraham’s consent, Sarah was disappointed and grief-stricken. God wasn’t happy either. It wasn’t His plan. When God brought news that she would give birth to the father of the covenant nation Sarah laughed in disbelief. But when she held her precious baby in her arms, she realized God can do anything and her joy overflowed into laughter.

Sarah stands singularly unique as a Biblical woman who’s name was changed by God. Her story isn’t perfect obedience, but it is a story of a faith that outweighed defeat. God’s divine promises have Sarah at the heart of them, and her marginal status became a very important part of the Israel’s history.

In the darkest moments of your story, God HAS NOT forgotten you.  He has a plan, but faith is the only means to experience it.

Have a Blessed Day,

Gretchen

He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, do not pass your servant by,” Genesis 18:3 (Genesis chapters 18 &19)

The culmination of God’s plan and timing has come together and while Sarah is way beyond the season of child bearing and Abraham is very old, 99 years in fact, God says, “In a year it will happen.”  In this, only God can claim glory and Isaac is born, the covenant son.  Lot’s family is threatened by the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah but Abraham intervenes. Known as God’s friend, Abraham speaks on behalf of the innocent in the company of the wicked and we see that it goes against God’s nature to destroy and a final judgement is never a first option.

Three visitors came to Abraham’s tent, near the great trees of Mamre, in the middle of the day (during siesta) and Abraham offers them the highest hospitality. During this visit, the promise of a longed for son becomes a reality and Abraham, as a friend of God, pleads for the innocent people of two cities and the home of his nephew Lot’s family. God shows His compassion for those who choose to live in righteousness. When we read the Biblical narrative it is easy to delete the freewill factor. It seems that everything is just God’s predestination and we are pawns in His game. It is not so! Do not fall into a trap of excusing bad things as fate, ill luck or karma and then denying gratitude for blessings because it is your due, or a happy coincidence. Abraham was called, and he went. The journey wasn’t without it’s real life episodes, but it is the story of a Trustworthy God and a faithful man.

Seek right and healthy relationships. Make wise promises and keep them. Ask for forgiveness, accept it humbly. Commit your life to God and walk forward in peace.

Love,

Gretchen 

When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.” Genesis 17:1 (Chapter 17)

God’s promissory covenant with Abraham in chapter 15 verse 18 was unconditional, but the covenant of circumcision is dependent on man’s obedience. Circumcision was a physical sign to the reality of all God’s promises and obedience to God by His people. In this narrative there is the gathering of a multi-racial household into one covenant. Through circumcision, those not related to Abraham joined in kinship with him.

The blessing of all nations began with this one. In ancient times a landed family wrote precise records of offspring and lineage. This was proof of ownership, their heritage. Abraham’s blessing did not come from his earthly father. He was called to leave his home and go into a strange place and there, God would make him the father of a new and great nation.

Humanity repeatedly sorts itself out according to physical attributes, languages and geography. I am not minimizing the covenant of circumcision, but the greater part of this relationship between God and man is obedience, not branches on the family tree validated by race. To share in the Body/Family of God our Father, we must share in each other, first through obedience to God and then love for one another.

Have a Wonderful Week End,

Gretchen

The angel of the LORD also said to her, “You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery.” Genesis 16:11 (Genesis 12-16)

Abraham was born in the city, but God called him into the country of Canaan. The area was stricken with drought so Abraham, Sarai and his nephew Lot, went into Egypt, but first he asked his wife/half sister Sarai to disguise the fact that they were husband and wife, as Sarai was amazingly beautiful, thus putting Abraham’s life in jeopardy. Sure enough, Pharaoh took her into his palace and gave Abraham gifts. Immediately plagues fell on this royal house and Abraham and Sarai were sent on their way. Having grown wealthier over time, Abraham and Lot had to separate because their vast live stock made living together too difficult. Given the choice of land, Lot took his portion from along the Jordan valley, but got caught up in a war between local kings and was taken prisoner. Abraham went and rescued him. 

Sarai, Abraham’s wife was barren. Although God made a promise that his offspring would be like the dust on the earth, Abraham and Sarai had grown old and they were beginning to lose sight of God’s promised blessing. Hagar was a servant that probably came into their household when Pharaoh gave Abraham servants and cattle as compensation for having taken Sarai into his harem. Sarai gave Hagar to Abraham so that he could conceive a child with her and carry on his family line. It was a short walk to bitterness for Sarai, and dissonance and discontent fell on everyone. Hagar ran away, but was ordered to return with God’s peace. She gave birth to Ismael who became the patriarch of the Arab people.

Hagar, an Egyptian, came to Abraham’s household because of the lie about his kinship to Sarai and Ismael is the result of Sarai’s impatience with God’s will and timing. 

God explicitly, through the act of covenant making, laid out His promise to Abraham and Sarai and they still took matters into their own hands. It didn’t go well. But God is faithful and He will do what He promised He would do. He is worthy of our unquestioning trust, love and adoration.

Have a great Friday,

Gretchen

Then they said, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. Genesis 11:3-4 (Genesis 9:18 through chapter 11)

These chapters are the genealogies from Noah to Abraham.  In the middle of this ancestry is the story of Babel. 

Noah’s ark settled on top of Mr. Ararat, some 500 hundred miles from its origin.  After Noah and his sons disembarked, they gradually returned to the land of Babylonia, long known as “Land of Nimrod. Nimrod was a powerful, warrior leader and built two cities, Babylon and Nineveh. 100 years after the flood, man is firmly entrenched in their rebellion once again.  Determined to worship themselves, pride was the driving force. God said to fill the earth, but the people of Babylon wanted to remain in one place and become powerful.

This attempt to build a tower to the clouds was the foundation of a greater sin against God. These men set themselves up to go knocking at heaven’s door and meet their gods on equal terms. Some say they built the pyramid like tower for worship, others believe they sought to become godlike. God is God and this is not acceptable. He separated them, making it impossible to create a conversation, much less a megapolis. These citizens, at the center of the known world, separated according to their languages and went their merry way. The skyscraper remained forever unfinished.

Babylon is synonymous with the world’s greatest evil and wickedness, but many times God used this nation to accomplish His greater purpose.

God’s love for man perpetuates His every act. Our response should be reckless, abandoned obedience and unrestrained worship and joy. There is judgement and consequence for sin, but it is not fate for those who choose to follow The One True God.

Have a Great Thursday,

Gretchen

Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.  Genesis 5:24 (Genesis chapters 5-9)

In five chapters we have seen ten generations of man come and go. It is an important line of decent. Enoch was the father of Methuselah, who holds the world’s record for longevity (969 years). He was also Noah’s human connection to the Garden of Eden. Man’s image was now marred, mankind had become abominable in God’s eyes. Enoch and his son’s life times overlapped Adam and Methuselah was a contemporary of Noah. Through Enoch and Methuselah, Noah had a direct human connection to Adam. Methuselah died the year of the flood.

Even with the righteousness of Enoch and Noah, God acted in judgement against man and destruction was let loose. In his act of meticulous obedience, Noah became the source of survival for all living things. God makes a covenant with Noah that extended to all humanity. In the rainbow we have the promise that complete annihilation by flood will never happen again. God also restates that man is created in His image and murder will not be tolerated.

Noah and Enoch are men that are remembered for following and honoring the One True God. Their obedience was faith based and God’s response was deliverance. Enoch did not die, but was ‘taken away’, and Noah lived while all humanity perished.

Faith Matters!

Gretchen

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?  But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it. Genesis 4:7  (Genesis chapters 3 & 4)

The serpent, crafty as he was/is, brought into question the goodness of God.  Does God really have our best interest at heart? Or is He just being a tormenting, lying bully? Satan was successful and brought sin, pain, toil and death to mankind. Creation was reversed, harmony disrupted. With banishment from the garden, Adam and Eve were cut off from ‘the tree of life’. Without God’s intervention, immediate separation for all eternity was man’s fate.

Cain brought a sacrifice to God, but something about this act of worship didn’t ring true. The sin in Cain’s heart became the sin in Cain’s action and his offering was rejected. He is reminded of God’s omnipotent knowledge and authority and implored to resist rebellion and simply obey. 

The Bible story reveals over and over that God’s plan is Grace and Mercy and the restoration of man to the likeness of God. Sin has come, but it’s not the end of the story by any means! Man’s natural state is driven to self centered behavior, but God calls us to choose obedience. It is not impossible, but a choice, a very, very important, deliberate choice.

Love,

Gretchen

The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  Genesis 2:7  (Genesis chapters 1& 2)

The primitive cultures that came about after man’s sin all have creation myths, attempts to explain the unexplainable. They each involve conflict and struggle.  God’s creative act is voluntary, effortless and rational. There was nothing and then there was every thing. His proclamation that “It is good,” confirms God’s active participation in the beginning and his will to perpetuate all living things and the home that provides for them.

It was man that God ‘breathed’ into existence. He spoke and created all other things, but took something of Himself and gave us life and identity. We consider ourselves His crowning creations, but consider instead that Adam was placed in the garden as its caretaker, then God ordained the seventh day, a sabbath, to establish a specific time of Holy, single minded communion between Creator and created, with no other distractions. God designed us to rest and restore by means of appropriate communion and worship.

Many times throughout the Story of God and His love for us, creation is referenced to show God’s authority and ability to keep order in a world turned chaotic by sin. If God can order the universe and speak things into being, then He can handle the issues that weigh us down. The world around may have the appearance of ‘coming from together,’ but God is faithful, able and willing to exert His loving authority to keep you in perfect peace.

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength not one of them is missing. Isaiah 40:26

Trust Him, it works every time.

Love,

Gretchen