A couple of things stood out to me in today’s chapter………
The first, is that the chapter begins with the Lord calling Abram to “Leave your country, your people, and your fathers household and go to the land I will show you.” God calls people to do His work, and sometimes it means leaving your family behind. This would not be easy to do. At this point we do not know much about Abram, but I wonder if God knew that this calling would be difficult for Abram? Is that why God told Abram that He would make him into a great nation, blessing or cursing those who either blessed or cursed him? It was as though God had to dangle the carrot in front of Abram to have him leave. Either way, Abram did obey God and left his family behind.
The second one caused me to wonder why Abram didn’t want to be honest to Pharaoh about Sarai being his wife? I know we read that Abram thought they would have killed him otherwise, but by Abram not being honest to Pharaoh, did that show where Abram’s faith in God was? After all, God did previously say that He would bless or curse those who either blessed or cursed him. As a side note, I would have thought that Pharaoh would have wanted to kill Abram more so after finding out that he lied to him. Again, either way, Abram’s plan worked. Pharaoh treated him well and Abram acquired sheep, cattle, donkeys, servants, and camels.
So we begin to see the Lord’s words to Abram come to fruition; blessing Abram and becoming a great nation.
Lock Your Wings 
That’s something I noticed too. Quite often Abraham/Abram is noted in Scripture as being full of faith, and yet right at the beginning of his story we read that he lied about his wife. Goes to show that even a strong faith is not perfect.
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True. A good reminder that God uses imperfect people
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We read in chapter 11 that Sarai was unable to have children and yet when God tells Abram that he and his descendants will inhabit this land, Abram immediately builds an altar. That’s trust in faith that God will provide him heirs. Then he lies about Sarai being his sister in the next chapter?? That’s doubt in God’s ability to protect Abram and Sarai. I too thought that Pharaoh would have been angrier to learn he had been lied to and had plagues brought on.
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I forgot that we were told that Sarai was unable to have children before Gods promise to Abram. That is faith and makes it even more interesting that Abram felt he needed to lie about Sarai. I guess it shows our inability as humans and how God still uses imperfect people.
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“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever causes you I will curse; all peoples on earth will be blessed through you……Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.” Job 12:3, 13 NIV
The same theme stood out to me today as previously. I wonder what the time lapse was between these two verses; we read them in just a few short minutes, but perhaps it was years past. It’s easy to look at Abram and point out his flaws, meanwhile in a similar fashion, we could insert our names in the place of Abram.
May we remember the promises of God, and then not forget about Him when we face difficult situations.
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