How Would You Introduce Yourself?

Hello! I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this posting as it stands very near and dear to my heart, and, unless you have subscribed to this blog by email, I have no way of knowing who is reading it. Please feel free to hit the comment link and let me know if, and how, this speaks to your heart. I’d love to know you’re out there and be blessed by your reflections!

Sunday’s teaching from Genesis 17 really spoke to my heart, and I wanted to share its core with a broader audience (I will try and remember to let you know when I am able to catch the church’s web page up and post an mp3 copy of it). The teaching focused on the point in Abram’s life when God changed his name to Abraham, which means “A Father of Multitudes” (God had previously told him his offspring would be like the stars if he could number them).

Here is the situation: Abram is 99. Sarai is 90. They have already proven they can’t have children together. God changes Abram's name and says their baby is one year away—so they are at least three months from conception and four to five months from even being sure she is pregnant. The question that rings in my heart is this: “If I am Abram, what is my name for myself those first few months, and how do I introduce myself to others?”

This is huge. Don’t dismiss this quickly. Dig deep in your heart and ask that of yourself. God has declared over you something that contradicts everything physical circumstance, logic, anyone else, and even yourself says about you and your life. Do you require anything beyond God’s Word to believe something? If you are Abram, is God’s Word enough for you to proudly declare of yourself, “Hello! I am a father of multitudes!”?

This is really important because God has awesome, wonderful things He has declared over our new life in Him if we have surrendered our lives to His Lordship. Words about our new identity. Words about our destiny. Words about how He sees us. Words about His new role in our life. But, these words so often stand in opposition to our circumstance, previous experiences, how others see us, and how we see ourselves. So often the “voices” that have spoken over our lives for so many years (our own, and others) are so familiar that we assume them to be true and we receive them more readily than God’s. We have to train ourselves to recognize and believe God’s voice, through His written and spoken Word in our life. It is a battle to see and receive ourself as God sees and receives us. To paraphrase Bill Johnson, “We can’t afford to have any thoughts in our head about ourself that aren’t in His (about us).”

So, sit back, pour some coffee (or whatever it is you sip while you reflect), and ask yourself, “If I were Abram could I have begun to introduce myself to others (and see myself as) a father of multitudes, simply on what God has said over my life that is still in the future and that I can’t see any evidence of?” Then ask yourself, “So, what HAS God said about me and MY life . . . and have I received it?”

The logical extension to this then becomes, “Do we see others the way God sees them, despite how they act or seem?” And that is an entirely different battle we face.

I'm More Afraid of . . .

As I was talking with Mary Ann about Sunday's teaching on Genesis 16 (in which Sarai gave her maidservant Hagar to Sarai's husband Abram to try and get the son God promised them Abram would have) I was struck with a thought: I am more afraid of my good intentions than my bad. What I mean by this is that I don't set out to deliberately disobey God or do "evil" things and I can pretty easily recognize those things and say "no" to them. I usually know and recognize when my intentions are bad, and it is really then a simple question of choosing to obey God or my flesh. Whichever decision I make it is clear and I usually am aware I am making it.

It is my "good intentions" that are really, for me, the most dangerous. I believe that Sarai and Abram had really good intentions. Think about the depth of Sarai's good intentions and desire to do for God that she would give another woman to her husband. But, those good intentions---decieving in how dangerous they are because they are "good"---caused tremendous hurt and pain for those involved and have caused ripples of unrest and war to this day.

So often we step out of that place of pure faith, of trusting God completely, and don't even realize it because we are "good intentioned". But, really, our good intentions can easily be a substitute for faith and standing on God as we seek to take some level of control back, or at least to feel like we are "doing something." This isn't to say that faith doesn't require action. Not at all. But it must be God-directed action. Peter's intent to save Jesus from Jesus' fate was met with, "Get behind Me Satan" because Peter was not mindful of the things of God but of the things of man.

The life of faith sometimes seems like a scary free-fall because we are living totally in a realm of trust, but it is really the only place we are securely in the center of God's palm. I need to make really, really sure that my "good intentions" are not really a running ahead of God, or a substitute for trust and faith. The last thing I want is to be in a place where I am not in God's will, and I am finding I get that way more often acting on my "good intentions" than my "bad" ones. Thoughts? Comments? Or did this even make any sense at all?