“Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.” (Verses 10-11)
Of the two verses above, it was actually verse 11 (the last sentence) that stood out to me. The reason being that I questioned why that verse, which seemed somewhat random, was included in the passage?
In doing a little further investigating, one thought on this verse was that the birds of prey were an evil presence. This reminded me of the fact that where God is in His goodness, Satan is also present with his attempt to spoil. Satan wants nothing more than to interfere with those who are responding faithfully to God.
Abram was focused on the purpose of his task and not merely performing the task. He was aware of the importance of what God was requesting of him, and was determined to not let anything interfere. May we have that same focus on executing the tasks that the Lord has asked of us.
Lock Your Wings 
Thanks for that insight – that verse stood out to me as odd as well.
I liked that God used creation to show Abram how He will bless him. God could have just said, “I will give you many descendants,” but instead he said, “look at the stars and try to count them, this is how many your descendants will be.” Now, even thousands of years later, I can look at the stars and remember the covenant God made with Abram and how it was eventually fulfilled. The stars can be a reminder to me today that God is faithful.
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Cool point. I never thought of that before.
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One thing that stood out for me was that while Abram always stands as a man of faith, he also is full of discontent. He has a beautiful wife, wealth, land, and a relationship with God that is admirable. But he is not content because he does not have an heir. How many times do we ignore what God has already blessed us with rather than focus on what God is withholding from us?
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Good point. Plus this ties in very well with the next chapter!
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Funny that again I thought that verse 11 was somewhat random.
“But Abram said, ‘Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘ You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.’” Genesis 15:2-3 NIV
What stood out to me is that Abram, despite not having children, was determined to be faithful to God and not receive anything other than that which came from Him. At the close of the last chapter he refused to receive anything from the king of Sodom so that no one else could claim credit for Abram’s wealth, and yet being childless, his great wealth would have meant leaving everything to a servant. The only thing that Abram wanted that he did not yet possess, was a child.
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