‘Go walk through the length and breadth of the land for I am giving it to you’.
Genesis 15.17
As we come to Genesis 20 today, and by now you will surely realise although it has not been stated, that I am seeking to draw a lesson from each chapter of this foundational book, we find Abraham doing just what God commanded in the verse above but..
He moved on from there into the region of the Negev…… for a while he stayed in Gerar and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.”20.1
He was obedient to God’s command to go through the land which God had promised but
Oh, what a sadly short memory this great man of God possessed. Apparently forgetting, as he arrived in Gera, the trouble the same action caused last time.
Oh, what apparently small trust he had in God’s care and provision if he was but to walk honestly and transparently in his ways.
Oh, what grace and mercy God showed to his servant and to Abimelech in redeeming the situation and establishing a covenant between the King and Abraham.
We shall meet Abimelech again in Chapter 26 in sadly very similar circumstances only with Isaac rather than Abraham and learn from what happened then but for today and everyday it is good to examine our walk of faith.
At one level I am glad to know that the ‘Heroes of Faith’ were fallible just like I am but I am not called to copy them in their moments of failure. Rather I am called to walk hearing that voice which if I turn to the right or to the left, will say to me, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30.21
God may well teach you other things from this encounter but for me it is a challenge to walk so closely with my God that I can be open and honest in everything without fear. May that be true for each of us.