June 21, 2022

Genesis 12: 2 (NIV)

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”

God delights in making somebodies into nobodies so he can make the nobodies into the somebodies he had in mind.*

I never longed for motherhood, but since June 8, 1987, I am overwhelmed by the honor of being Will and Jake’s mom. I am humbled that God entrusted me with the awesome responsibility of their physical welfare and their spiritual development. They have brought me nothing but joy (keeping in mind that James said to consider it pure joy whenever we face trials of many kinds!) and I have to ask myself, “Why me?”

So, we ask ourselves, "Why Abraham?" As someone else has observed, “Theoretically, God could have established his covenant with anyone.”* Was Abraham the only man in the world who met the qualifications to be the father of a great nation? Had God already offered the job to someone else who turned him down? All we know for sure is that God chose Abraham because he chose to choose Abraham. His selection may appear to be random but nature proves and scripture confirms that God is orderly and never purposeless.

God may not have chosen you or me to be famous historical figures, but he has chosen us to be his children. Abraham, though handpicked by God to receive the blessing, could have chosen to decline the honor. We must decide, too, whether we will accept the call to his family. We are part of God’s plan (Ephesians 1: 11) but we are included only through our connection with Jesus Christ. We are wise to follow Abraham’s example of obedience but we must never forget that it was for his faith that he was deemed as righteous.

We aren’t all special.  There was one Moses and millions of followers, one Mary and a country full of unremarkable Jewish girls.*