Why Abram?

REVELATION OF GOD Meditations No.4 of 10

Gen 12:1-3 The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Warning! We did say that in this series we will cover big sweeps, and so we are not focusing on individual verses but will cover big sweeps of history and in this study, we will consider many years of life of Abram as he was originally named, later to be renamed Abraham. Serious thinkers might ponder this question. Why Abram? Why this childless nomad? The answer, we suggest, is that God saw in him a man through whom He could show things about Himself. When you enter into relationship with someone you have to reveal yourself to them; it is what a relationship is all about. Remember, this series is all about how God came to reveal Himself to the human race.

The first thing I want to suggest, is that 1. God sees and knows and understands everything there is to know about us. God sees this man who has gone along with his father on a trek from Ur to Canaan but has settled in Haran (Gen 11:31). He sees he is childless (Gen 11:30) and that this is something through which He can reveal something of Himself. (The unfolding story indicates all this is true).

The second thing God shows is that 2. He has a purpose for the earth which stretches far into the future. He communicates with Abram and tells him that He has a land for him to settle in and He will make him great and He will give him many descendents. For a childless nomad, this is quite an amazing promise. God is going to take him and use him to bless many people in the centuries to come; just how will only become clear as we read through the Bible.

The third thing that comes through about God is that 3. He persists with our slowness to understand. Remember Abram is the first man that God is going to reveal Himself to and through. This is a very embryonic relationship. Abram has nothing to go on beyond what he senses he is hearing. Difficult! Yet God understands us and understands Abram and knows how difficult it is, so we find Him speaking again and again to Abram, in the following chapters, reiterating His original first promises, that the land of Canaan will be his, and he will have many descendents.

Now after many years pass, Abram’s wife, Sarai, suggests that perhaps Abram has misheard (I’m assuming) because in all those previous promises there was no mention of her, so why doesn’t he take her maid and have his children through her. So this is what happens and Ishmael is born. But God doesn’t give up. Some twelve years later He speaks to Abram again and tells him that the coming son is in fact to be born to Sarai. Now the only trouble about this is that Sarai is also very old and well past the menopause and well beyond child-bearing capabilities. By now, Abram has learnt that he can trust what he is hearing from God, so this lovely old couple try for a baby, and miracle of miracles, she conceives and Isaac is born. So fourthly, through this incredible event, God reveals that He is 4. A God who can intervene in His world and bring miraculous changes, i.e. the things He can do can go completely against what we call the course of nature, the way that God originally designed things to be.

So to recap, through the accounts of God’s dealings with Abram, (later to be called Abraham) we learn that God:
1. Sees and knows and understands everything there is to know about us,
2. Has a purpose for the earth which stretches far into the future,
3. Persists with our slowness to understand,
4. Can intervene in His world and bring miraculous changes.

The picture of God being revealed thus far is of an all-knowing and all powerful God who enters into relationships with frail men and women, who He knows will struggle to understand Him, yet with whom He persists and gently draws into a place where He can bless them and bring good into their lives. It is the picture of God who interacts with sinful mankind, when He is allowed by their free will, and draws them into a place of good.