By Dr. Lee Bee Teik

We come to the final stage of our common pilgrimage as God’s children. Note that these stages often repeat themselves for a given situation on earth for each person or as a local community. However, we may encourage one another that overall we are like going three steps forward and taking two backwards till He comes again! Faith is a daily practical experience for all born into this world. For example, to sit on a chair requires faith that it will take our weight. Even though we do this automatically, it is by others’ (as described in biographies) and our past experiences with chairs that do not break when we sit on them that we dare to do it repeatedly anywhere. However, it is essential that the object of our faith is trustworthy. In like manner, we can trust God as He has provided records of His faithfulness to His word to others and to us in so many ways since Genesis. Sometimes we misunderstand Him and His ways with us. Nevertheless, He has provided means for us to know that in the end, things will be all right, as in Romans 8.

Therefore, having sorted out our past with God in positive retrospection, what does He want to do with us? He would like to take us into His future good for us in accordance to His overall purpose and plan for His redeemed people. We can rest assured that He knows what He is doing though our faith in Him seems to lag behind ever so often. He understands that we are made of clay. Therefore, He coaxes us, goads us, disciplines and embraces us so that we are able to receive His customized good for each of us now and forever more.

1. What sort of relationship did Abraham have with his God?

In Genesis 12:1
God called Abraham (then Abram) to leave his familiar and secure environment to go to the land He will show to him.

“Go, I will show you...” formed the crux of his calling.

Abraham trusted God with a childlike faith and obeyed. He moved on even though he was as weak as we are. He went out not knowing where he was going…

In Genesis 12:10-20,
Abraham told his wife to tell a lie. Consequently, God punished the Egyptians because Pharaoh took her as his wife. Abraham did this to save his own skin (similar to Peter’s denial?). However, God honoured his humility and integrity as shown in Genesis 14. He really cared for God’s honour before outsiders. Therefore,

In Genesis 15,
Abraham openly expressed his doubt to God.

Was God angry with him for asking sincere questions?

No, instead, He reassured Abraham of His faithfulness in fulfilling His promise to him. He just had to wait. God understood his struggle to trust Him and reassured him of His promise. Abraham believed God’s word and God counted his faith in Him as righteousness. When he needed a sign, God granted it to him. God appreciated his trust so much that He entrusted His secrets about the future generations to Abraham.

Abraham trusted God and kept moving, even though he failed again by listening to Sarah’s pestering to help God give them a child (Genesis 16).

In Genesis 17,
God did not talk to Abraham, He talked with Abraham and changed his name from Abram to Abraham...signifying a change of role as head of a family clan to head of a nation. That God honours those who honour Him is indeed true.

In 2 Chronicles 20:7,
when King Jehoshaphat prayed for help, he added his appeal with a reminder to God,

“Lord, we are descendants of Abraham, Your friend...remember? Abraham with whom You talked...we are his descendants...I am sure You will listen to us because of him...” (Rather Asian indeed!)

Again, in James 2:23,
it is stated once more that Abraham believed God and his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness. How privileged to be called “the friend of God”!

Therefore,

The Critical Issue at this stage of pilgrimage for us, once we have dealt with our past before God and man, is to jump like an acrobat on a trapeze.

An acrobat has to let go of one swinging bar before he can reach out to grip the next one. On a similar manner, the recovering pilgrim needs to let go of the bad past in order to be able to reach out and receive God’s new present and future blessings. He moves:

** From the Known -> to the Unknown

because

** Faith in God’s word as command means obeying Him through the exercise of faith

and

** Faith in God’s word as promise means trusting Him even when we cannot see ahead of us clearly.

This jump is often difficult to take because:

It is sometimes less painful and therefore more comfortable to remain in a bad situation (and old patterns of thinking and behavior) than to deal with deeper hurts in order to let them go. The future with God, though good, can be rather uncomfortable at first because it is so new. Hence, often, hurting people need a temporary assistant to the Holy Spirit to stand with them till the crisis is over and then they are able to proceed with joy with their Saviour and Friend!

For example,

Chin Chin grew up in a dysfunctional family where, as the eldest child, she had to parent her own parents who could not fulfill the roles of leadership at home. After God’s healing in her own life, something happened to her Dad.

A year after she was discharged, Chin Chin called up, out of the blue, for another session. I thought she had had a relapse into her old lifestyle. For the first time in their family history, Dad had called a family meeting and led in the discussion and she was nervous about it. She complained about feeling queer and did not know how to respond to her Dad’s new behavior at home. She was so used to leading his parents and her siblings...she would rather have his old ways back...at least she would know how to respond to him! When I explained to her that God was answering her prayers by helping her Dad to grow up, she began to see the changes from God’s perspective and rejoice in the changes at home. If I had also panicked, as I would have if the Lord had not given me this new insight, I could have encouraged her to slide back into her old thought pattern, feelings and life again.

Quote:
“While sometimes times we have to understand before we believe
(especially true in most tangible scientific and academic educational matters);
At other times, we have to believe before we can understand
(especially in relational and eternal matters).”

2. Where did Abraham find the strength for his on-going faith?

In Genesis 12:7,
An altar represents something stable, strong and immovable. Abraham built an altar each time the Lord spoke to Him about the certainty of His promise to him and his descendants. More significantly, as we have seen, an alter was the constant awareness of the presence of God in Abraham’s inner life. This led him to know that in a crisis,

“The Lord will provide!” (Genesis 22:9).

However, he was willing to hold on to the temporal external necessities of this life by living in tents that are mobile, unstable and changing.

Therefore, the SECRET of the ability to trust in God is to get to know Him better by meeting with Him as much as possible. It was this unchanging interior alter of friendship with God that enabled Abraham to trust that God would and could raise Isaac to life, if He has to do that, in order to fulfill His promise of a covenant heir. It was this trust that enabled him to move from the known to the unknown when God called him “to leave” his homeland and “to go” to the promise land of blessings. God did not tell him what would happen in between. On hindsight, we know.

3. Therefore, as we seek to help ourselves, we need to ask ourselves, in the later stages of pilgrimage:

“Are we willing to trust God enough to leave our wrong ways of thinking in order to receive God’s blessings of right thinking and, eventually, right feeling and right living?”

God reminds us in Hebrews 12:1-3 to:
Give up the past to Him...live today for Him...and move forward into the future with Him...

What a joy for His children when they finally begin and continue to walk with his God, His Father, Bridegroom and Friend! Hence, to trust and obey is actually our daily food for here is truly no other way to be happy in Jesus!

             Jesus I Come

Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
     Jesus I come, Jesus I come;
Into Thy freedom, gladness and light,
    Jesus I come to Thee.
Out of my sickness into Thy health,
Out of my want and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus I come to Thee.

Out of my shameful failure and loss,
     Jesus I come, Jesus I come;
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
     Jesus I come to Thee.
Out of earth’s sorrows into Thy balm,
Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm,
Out of distress to jubilant psalm,
Jesus I come to Thee.

Out of unrest and arrogant pride,
     Jesus I come, Jesus I come;
Into Thy blessed will to abide,
     Jesus I come to Thee.
Out of myself to dwell in Thy love,
Out of despair into raptures above,
Upward for aye on wings like a dove,
Jesus I come to Thee.

Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
     Jesus I come, Jesus I come;
Into the joy and light of Thy home,
     Jesus I come to Thee.
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus I come to Thee.

       William T. Sleeper