I have a confession to make. Sometimes I make a promise, which I fail to keep. Sometimes, I even know that I will fail at the time I make the promise. Other times, I set out fully intending to keep the promise, but something comes up which means that it just doesn’t happen. Hopefully, you are not surprised and shocked by this behaviour. Perhaps you have said ‘You must come round for a meal’ and then not followed it up with a proper invitation. Whether we intend it or not, our faithfulness is less than perfect.
God is faithful to his promises, even if we can’t see how it can be. God promised Abraham that he would have many descendants – yet he and his wife Sarah were way beyond the age where this would be considered possible. Abraham was over 100 and Sarah more than 90 years old.
Abraham even tried to ‘help God along’ by taking his maidservant Hagar as a wife (as they believed Sarah was infertile) and having a son by her. Yet, God was faithful to his promise:
‘”This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He [God] took him [Abraham] outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him “So shall your offspring be.”’ Genesis 15: 4-5 [NIV]
In time, God’s promise was fulfilled through their son Isaac, and there are already more descendants of Abraham than there are visible stars in the sky.
God is not a God of shifting sand; He is a rock on which we can build our foundations. Let’s make sure of the ground we are building on today.
Dave MacLellan (first published in 2003)
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