This week is going to be an honest week. We’ll be honest about God’s presence and participation in difficult circumstances. Circumstances that sometimes we cause and sometimes we don’t. Circumstances that sometimes we control and sometimes we don’t. Regardless of cause or control, God is there. He is present. He is working. For those times in your life, whatever they’ve been, or whatever they are, I hope and pray that you find blessing in these words this week. I hope and pray that you hang in there. I hope and pray that you hear the voice you need.
Genesis 15:9-17
“So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
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.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.”
This is a covenant day. It is a time of intimacy and transformation for Abram. God speaks to Abram in a vision. Abram is comfortable enough with that relationship to push back a bit. It always bothers me when this passage is used to paint Abram as somehow less than he should be. His authenticity is refreshing and compelling to me. And God never, NEVER, chastises him in this entire scenario. In fact, the Lord only takes Abram deeper into the relationship.
This is the “Look up at the sky and count the stars…if you can… So shall your offspring be” conversation. God reminds Abram how far they’ve come together. That’s a lot of miles, a handful of altars, increased wealth, political respect and military victories. Then God asks for the elements of a sacrifice, which Abram prepares. This is celebratory. This is overwhelmingly optimistic. This is great. The sun goes down, Abram goes to sleep, he’s been through a lot.
“…and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.”
Nobody is immune. Here’s a faithful man and wife who are obedient and blessed. They’re not immune. They literally have it all… almost all. What they don’t have, God has promised. And they’re not immune. Heaviness can find anyone. Despair can sneak up on all of us.
We can be doing just fine. We can be spiritually in tune. We can be on the same page as the important people in our lives. We can be secure and safe. The darkness can come from nowhere. Or we might not be any of those things at all and still find ourselves overwhelmed by dread without knowing why.
It is into that foreboding that God speaks. He speaks to Abram with the same authenticity that marks their relationship. The Christianese meme isn’t going to cut it. The uplifting quote doesn’t compare. It is the presence of God in those moments and His participation in those circumstances that transform us.
The last verse tells a story we rarely explore. While Abram sleeps, God is there. He is working and speaking. The torch passing between the pieces is the completion of the covenant. A sacred agreement and commitment between God and Abram. And it is God on both sides of the promise.
That is covenant. That is what God does in, with, for, and through us. It may just be that in our darkest moments that He is the most real, the most present, and carrying the most for us.
Reflect:
On the moments or seasons that have consumed you.
Journal:
On the ways the darkness has come over you. And on how God was, or may have been, present in those times.
Pray:
For courageous authenticity. That you will know His voice. For more spiritual depth. For a new covenant.