A More Nuanced Picture

Genesis 12:10-13:18

            One of the things we should get used to right away is that no one—bar no one—in the Bible is perfect. (Okay, Jesus is, but I hope we can agree He’s a special case…) The Lord had directed Abram to a land He would show him, and Abram obediently wen. Then, he kept on going, right to Egypt. He was escaping a famine, to be sure, but the Lord had never told Abram to go; Abram did that all on his own. The great patriarch, famous for his faith, had a lot to learn about living by faith. The God who had sent him to Canaan would have provided for him there.

            This temptation to live by his own plans and schemes works on Abram in the matter of Sarai, too. He instructs her to say that she is his sister, not his wife. (It wasn’t a complete lie; Genesis 20:12 tells us that Abram married his half-sister, Sarai.) Abram’s reasoning is that if Pharoah wants Sarai in his harem, he would have to kill Abram, if he knew Abram was her husband. If he’s just a brother, Pharoah can just take Sarai without consequence. Notice that Abram is willing to sacrifice Sarai’s honor for the sake of his own life. So much for chivalry! But the larger point is how Abram fails to trust that the Lord will take care of him.

            The strange thing is that in the next story, Abram is trusting God again. When he and Lot have to separate, Abram had every right as the family patriarch to tell Lot where to go. Instead he offers the choice, even though it would seem pretty obvious that Lot would choose the lush Jordan valley and that Abram would be left with the wilderness. Abram is willing to trust that the Lord will provide, even if he doesn’t demand what looks like the best land.

            I think one takeaway from these stories—a lesson we’ll come back to time and again—is that faith is hard. Critics of Christianity often talk about faith as a crutch; that doesn’t make any sense to me. It is infinitely harder to live by faith, to believe that our God has our best interests in mind, than it is to either rely on yourself. It is infinitely harder to live by faith, to believe that God has plans and purposes, for us than it is to fall into a sort  nihilism that says, “The world is unfair,” and to resign ourselves to injustice. Abram wasn’t perfect, and neither are we. His struggles to live by faith help us to negotiate our own struggles.