Genesis Day 24: God doesn’t need you to be Wonder Woman or Superman
Nowadays, most TV and Movie superheroes have human character flaws. Not so when I was growing up. My superheroes were perfect!
That had (and ridiculously continues to have) an effect on me.
I have unrealistic expectations for myself—and somehow think everyone else has these expectations—not just including God—but especially God.
Up until recently, writers for centuries would present heroes to be super-terrific people. They would wax over their flaws. It is why I love the Bible. It presents real people: complete, with all their warts. The people of the Bible remind me of me.
And because they are real people, we see how our real God deals with “us, non-super-terrific, imperfect” people.
Consider, we have met Abram for an entire 9 verses, and now we find him lying. Before being too critical, let’s remember that being in a famine and facing starvation would make most of us desperate.
But there is something to observe in this text. Nowhere do we find Abram “building an altar”. He did it twice in the first nine verses of this chapter. Said differently, nowhere in this text do we find Abram engaging God.
God has told Abram that he, God, would make Abram into a great nation. Now Abram is facing extinction by starvation.
He does not call out to God. Instead he relies on his own wits—and his wits lead to a hair-brained idea.
Yet God shows up! Why? In part because he cares about Abram. In part because He is a God who keeps his promises. He said He would bless Abram—He will.
This kind of a story gives me hope—hope for me. I am a person who too often “gets ahead” of God. I start with God, but then I start behaving independently of God—and I come up with all sorts of “half-witted & hair-brained” ideas.
And God does not give up—God is faithful—even to people like me who get ahead of Him.
Please don’t misunderstand. There are consequences to operating independently of God. He will/does intervene. But, He also lets the results of decisions play out. How else will we learn? In this instance with Abram, we do not get any details, but I have to think Abram and Sari’s relationship was impacted. Never mind Abram’s relationship with others around him.