sin

The Integrity of the Heart

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In Genesis chapter 20, we find Abraham and his wife Sarah traveling even further South to a new land and going back to old ways. Abraham tells the people of the new land that Sarah is his sister and the King of that land, Abimelech, decides to take her as his wife. This is now the second time something like this has happened. Sarah must have been really beautiful because at this point she was 90 years old and King Abimelech still wanted to be with her.

When King Abimelech goes to sleep, God talks to him about Sarah and reveals that she is already married to Abraham. Abimelech is shocked and says to God, “Hey I didn’t sleep with her, I didn’t touch her, I didn’t do anything and your boy Abraham said she was his sister and even she said she was his sister, so I believed them.” After saying he didn’t do anything wrong, Abimelech asks God to spare his life and God says he’ll keep him safe and that’s why He didn’t let Abimelech sleep with Sarah in the first place.

After his conversation with God, got up early and went to Abraham and asked him why he lied about his wife. Abraham said he lied because he was scared for his life because he thought he was going to a godless place, a place that didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. Clearly he was wrong, because Abimelech spoke to the Lord and was there to make things right. Abimelech gave Abraham some livestock, servants, silver, and returned his wife and told Abraham that he could live anywhere in the land and that Sarah’s innocence was vindicated (the silver was a symbol of that). After that, Abraham prayed to God and God made it so all the women in Abimelech’s kingdom could have children again, because the entire time Sarah was there, they had been barren.

I think there’s three major takeaways here. The first one is, if this part of the story feels familiar like you’re reliving it, take a look at the choices you’re making. If Abraham would have told the truth, this story would be vastly different than Chapter 12, but he chose to say that his wife was his sister again. If you keep reliving the same chapter of your life over and over again, take a look at the decisions you’re making to see what’s getting you to end up there.

The second takeaway is the importance of integrity. Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. Even when you could get away with doing something bad because of a technicality, you don’t do it. Even if someone did something that wrongs you, you continue to be upright in your actions. That’s exactly what Abimelech did. Even though Abraham lied to him, Abimelech still went to vindicate Sarah’s innocence. He didn’t lash out, he didn’t keep Sarah for himself, he didn’t punish anyone. He kept his moral uprightness and made things right, even apologizing in a place where he had been wronged.

And the last takeaway is that prayer is powerful. In the last two verses of this chapter, Abraham prays and women who were barren are able to conceive again. That right there is a miracle.

So I leave you with this, be encouraged because even if you make the same mistakes over and over again, there is always another chapter in the book of life and in that new chapter you can choose to take a different path. You can chose to be integral and you can pray about any situation and know that God will hear you and will answer your prayers. The answer might not be what you want to hear, but he will answer you so keep on praying.

Salt in the Wound

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In Genesis chapter 19, we see the two men that were with Abraham (spoiler alert: they are angels) go down to Sodom. Lot (Abraham’s nephew) sees the men and offers for them men to stay at his house. After some persuading, they agree. This is where things get crazy!

All the men of the town surround Lot’s house at night and demand that the new men staying with Lot come out so they can “have their way with them”. Lot tried to talk with the men surrounding the house so that they wouldn’t try to mess with the angels, he even offered up his two virgin daughters to the men in place of the angels (somehow that’s less messed up?). Those dudes weren’t having it though, especially from a foreigner like Lot, so they tried to attack Lot and break down the door to get to the angels. Before they could do that, the angels opened the door, snatched Lot and locked him in the house, then blinded all the men that were trying to attack them.

After that, the angels tell Lot to take all of his family and get out of the city, because stuff’s about to get real! God sent the angels to destroy the city because the place is too evil to exist. Lot told his son-in-laws what was up and they thought he was joking, so they didn’t move. The angels said “forget them, Lot you and your wife and daughters need to go now.” Lot was still lollygagging (not rushing, clearly not motivated by the impending doom) so the angels grabbed him by the arm and took him and his wife and daughters outside of the city so they wouldn’t go down in the destruction. The angels told them to escape to the hills and don’t stop or look back.

Lot was freaked out and didn’t think he could make it to the hills, so he asked the angels if he could run to a small town in the middle of nowhere that was closer instead. The angels agreed, but told him to hurry because they couldn’t start destroying things until he was safe.

When the sun rose in the morning, Lot and his family arrived at Zoar ( the small town). When they arrived, God sent a rain of fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah and all the cities of the valley, destroying them. Lot’s wife decided to look back on the place they had escaped (despite the angels’ instructions) and was turned into a pillar of salt.

Abraham woke up and saw all the fire and smoke from his house and thought of Lot and God’s promise to rescue him.

Eventually Lot left Zoar with his two daughters and moved into a cave in the hills (the hills that he told the angels he didn’t want to live in). Lot was getting pretty old and his daughters were getting older too. The daughters felt their biological clocks ticking and since God had wiped out all of them men in the land, they came up with a plan to get their father drunk and sleep with him. Both daughters became pregnant, the older one with a son named Moab and the younger one with a son named Ben-Ammi. This is where the Moabites and the Ammonites came from.

There is A LOT that went on in this chapter. Firstly though, if some dudes show up at your house and blind a whole bunch of people, then tell you to leave your house before you get destroyed with everyone else, maybe listen to them. Secondly, if you do evil stuff you’re going to get destroyed – so maybe don’t do evil stuff? Third, rules are in place for a reason. If someone says, hey don’t do this or you will die, don’t be surprised if there are some massive consequences when you do the thing you weren’t supposed to do. And lastly, if you raise your kids around a whole bunch of crazy, don’t be surprised when they act crazy.

I think the main point of this chapter is to show two things. 1) that God keeps his word. He spared Lot’s life like He said He would and He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah like He said He would. Everything He said He would do He did, so I think it’s safe to say that if He says He’s going to do something, He will. 2) actions have consequences. Being evil will consume you and get you destroyed. Being good could spare your life. And following directions will get you to safety.

God destroys the wicked places in our life for a reason. Sometimes we live somewhere (physically or metaphorically) that we are not meant to live in. Even though we may be a light in the dark place, if we weren’t assigned to be there, aren’t spreading our light (standing up to darkness) or if we are not connected to a source of light ourselves, we may be tempted to pick up some of the dark thought processes (ie offering the wicked men your daughters). When God destroys a place, he doesn’t want us to stop moving forward to our next place or to look back on the old place. He moved us out of there for a reason. He spared our life, so keep your eyes on the prize!

Be encouraged that He kept you from the destruction. You may not see the smoke or pillars of fire and He may have had to send angels to pull you out of there kicking and screaming, but the people who care for you (the Abrahams in your life who prayed that you would be spared) can see all of the smoke and know that you are safe.

Conversations with God

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In Genesis chapter 18, Abraham is hanging out by his tent when God appears to him and then three men show up and Abraham runs to greet them and offers to wash their feet, feed them and let them rest a while in his camp. This is another example of Abraham’s hospitable nature, it’s ingrained in him, it’s part of his character. After Abraham sets an entire feast in front of his guests, they asked him where his wife Sarah was and Abraham says that she is in the tent [as in that say it wasn’t proper for wives to entertain company]. One of the men then tells Abraham that he will return to Abraham in about a year and that Sarah will have a son in that time.

Hearing the man speak, Sarah laughed to herself and was like, “Great, now that I’m all gray haired and old I’ll finally get pregnant and have a baby. How can that be?”

Then the man looked to Abraham and asked why Sarah laughed at his words and then said, “is there anything too hard for God?” Sarah tried to deny laughing because she was afraid, but he called her out on that. I would have done the same though, it seems almost like human nature to deny things when we are afraid because maybe if we don’t acknowledge that we messed up, maybe it will go away and not be an issue. Maybe no one will notice our shortcomings or missteps if we pretend they didn’t happen. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, did it make a sound? Well, I’m not sure if it made a noise, but I do know that it fell down and denying that by saying it didn’t make a sound doesn’t change the tree fell over. In the same vein, Sarah may not have made any sound, but she sure did laugh and God knew that.

After that exchange, Abraham walks with the men towards Sodom for a little ways. During this walk, God tells Abraham that they are headed to Sodom and Gomorrah to see what they have done because they were a city full of evil people doing evil things. The three men headed towards the city, but Abraham hung back with God for a minuet.

Abraham asked God if he was going to destroy the righteous people along with the evil people, take out the innocent because of the guilty. Abraham asks if there were 50 good people in the city, would God spare that place for the good people? Abraham says, “you wouldn’t do that, right God? Because you’re a good God.” He’s basically saying, I know your character God, you wouldn’t kill the innocent would you? And God responds by saying that he would spare the 50 righteous people. So then Abraham asks, well what if there were only 45 good people, would you spare them? And God says yes. Abraham asks a few more times until he gets down to 10 and asks what if there were only 10 good people, would you spare them? God again says yes. Then God went on his way and Abraham went back to his home and that’s where we end the chapter.

Now there is A LOT going on in this chapter and the action really breaks down into two parts. The first part is when Abraham invites the men to his camp and Sarah laughs at what God says. I find this particularly funny because God has been continually showing up for Abraham and Sarah and telling them that they’re promised to have a son, but because of their age and how long they’ve been waiting on this promise it seems impossible. I know that I’m the type of person where I’ll believe it when I see it. If there’s no evidence proving that you’re going to do what you said you were going to do, it’s not going to happen until it does IF it does. I would have laughed right along with Sarah, but here’s the thing: this wasn’t a friend or a parent or a random person telling Sarah what was promised for her future, this was the God of all creation. This was the God that got them out of some really tight situations. Once again, God reaffirms His promise and gives a timeline to it now, saying in about a year that promise will be fulfilled.

The second part of the chapter is where God and Abraham talk about the fate of Sodom. Now if you remember a few chapters back, Abraham’s nephew Lot lives in Sodom, so Abraham has a lot to lose if God destroys the city. I love how Abraham reminds God of God’s character before asking if He will spare the city. He was like “I know you, but also I want to make sure that I know you.” And I love that God is willing to have this conversation with Abraham. He’s willing to talk him through what’s going to happen, willing to answer questions, and willing to ease some of Abraham’s fears before He does anything.

Be encouraged! That God of this chapter is the same God of today. He keeps His promises, even if they seem impossible or take a long time to manifest and He is willing to have a conversation and answer questions about anything, including the things that scare us. I dare you to start that conversation with Him! His character hasn’t changed, so give it a shot.

Rainbow Promise and a Not So Different Land

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In Genesis chapter 9, we see that Noah and his family have left the ark and God has blessed them and told them to go forth and multiply, just as He told Adam and Eve in the garden. The Earth had been wiped clean of all humanity and it was Noah’s sons who were to repopulate. In addition to this, God commands mankind to look after the Earth, all the animals, He allows them to eat the animals now as long as they drain the blood from the animals (no drinking blood and do not torture the animals, kill them humanely), and lastly God says that anyone who murders someone is to be killed. He ends His instructions by retelling Noah and his family to be fruitful and multiply.

After He gives instructions, God makes a promise that he will never take out the whole Earth again by a flood. To show a sign of his promise, He put a rainbow in the sky. What comfort that must have been to these lone survivors of the great flood. I wonder how many times they saw rain and though the flood might happen again, but then saw the rainbow and were relieved by God’s promise.

As with most things in life, after an amazing life changing moment or a great travesty, life went back to normal and people reverted back to known behaviors. Noah planted a vineyard and got drunk. It doesn’t say why this happened or how Noah was feeling or what led him to this, it just says that he got drunk and laid uncovered (naked) in his tent. This was not how a great man, the only man who found favor with God in wicked times, was supposed to act. He was supposed to be great all the time, and yet we see his humanness. We see him act differently than we expect. Despite the excuse or the reason, we only see the action.

Now does this mean that God took away His promise from Noah or that He was mad and punished Noah? No, in fact the text doesn’t make any mention to God’s feelings on this situation. Additionally, we still see rainbows in the sky to this day and are reminded of God’s promise. What we do see are consequences and an aftermath that happens as a result of Noah’s actions though.

We are told that Noah’s youngest son sees his nakedness and tells his brothers. The brothers cover their father with a garment and never see the nakedness of their father. After Noah wakes up, he learns what happened and curses (Noah curses, not God) his youngest son for what he did.

Now there is a lot of speculation on what actually happened and why it was so bad. Here’s what I know. Noah’s youngest son saw something and did nothing about it except to tell others. The older boys covered their father and didn’t look. It could be as simple as that. Nakedness implies a level of vulnerability and especially if Noah was in a drunken state, he was not himself and was probably even more vulnerable than normal. The youngest son did not protect this vulnerability, but the older ones did without asking for specifics or digging into the matter. They did not need to see what state their father was in, they just covered him.

That is what family is supposed to do. When you are at your lowest point, when you have misstepped, when you have found yourself in a vulnerable place, family is there to cover you no questions asked. Family might mean different things to everyone. It could be your family of origin, your close friends, or other believers, but family are those you are familiar with that surround you. They won’t be perfect all the time, but they will cover you and you need to cover them too.

Be encouraged, we have all survived the floods of life, we see the rainbow promise in the sky that God won’t wipe out His creation, and your family (even the family you have in believers just reading this post) will cover you and pray for you. You were made in God’s image and are fearfully and wonderfully made and there is nothing you can do to make God forget His promise or His people. Be blessed.