God had proven himself as Abram’s shield and defender in the battle to rescue Lot. Abram had proven himself faithful to the Lord in refusing to accept material gifts from the King of Sodom. “After this” God spoke to Abram, promising him a reward.

Abram is unsure. He needs assurances about how God will fulfil his promise. Even though Abram has left his land, his people and his family at God’s call, he still struggles to understand how God will fulfil his promise to give him the land and provide him with descendants when he is old and childless. Graciously, God reassures him, and Abram believes. His faith is credited to him as righteousness.

Abram had always believed God. He had just not really understood how God would work. He had applied human logic to his interpretation of what God had said. While he trusted God to provide the land and the descendants, he humanly assumed that this would be through his nephew, or a servant, since he was childless. Abram knew enough of God’s sovereignty to believe him and obey him, but not enough to understand that God’s sovereignty extended even to physical miracles and supernatural interventions.

It is one thing to believe that God is Lord, to believe that God can accomplish what he has said he will do. We may choose to believe God and obey him based on his sovereignty, and yet still attempt to fulfil his will using human ideas and human plans.

When we do that, we accept second best. If God has a will, he also has a way. If we accept God’s will, but not his way, then we are robbing ourselves of his best plan for us. Our obedience to the Lord requires more than saying yes, and then attempting to complete the task ourselves. Our obedience must be our agreement not only to what God wants to do, but how he will do it. His ways are most definitely not our ways – they are above and beyond what we can imagine. If you are struggling in the call God has given you, check: are you doing it your way, or his?

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NEWBOLD COMMUNITY CHURCH