Life is full of hopes, dreams, and desires. The trouble is the actual getting them. We have such grand ideas for how and when those dreams and desires, and when that doesn’t pan out the bottom falls out. But in our need to be in control, instead of embracing the disappointment, we try to smooth it over by telling ourselves that less is what we wanted in the first place.
Enter Abram, later to be upgraded to Abraham. In a world full of people who are disasterously far from God and have no interest in hearing from him, let alone heeding what he has to say. Abram is different. He’s an absolute disaster of a human, sure, (let’s not forget the whole “don’t tell the Egyptians you’re my wife” incident) but he listens when God speaks and has a heart for Him.
But Abram and his wife have no children. Besides the pain of wanting a child of your own and being unable to have one, in ancient times a child was your legacy and retirement plan. To be without one was to have nothing. At this point, Abram and Sarai have quite frankly no hope of having children. They are old, they’ve tried with no success, they’re past the point of feasibility. It’s not a long shot, it’s an impossible one. In desperation, Sarai has given Abram her slave to have a child with and that has only made everyone miserable. That’s where we are when God speaks to Abram again.
God once again affirms at length the promises he has planned for Abram, including that long forgotten dream of having a son to carry his name into future generations and a new name: Abraham. Now, you might expect someone to say “thank you” or at the very least “wow” when the God of the entire universe speaks to you to promise you the one thing you’ve thought was impossible for you to have. But that’s not what Abraham does.
“Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!” (Genesis 17:17-18)
Abraham is ready to settle for good enough. But good enough is never God’s plan. He hears Abraham’s second best option and then blows it out of the water. Second best is never good enough for God.
We are all to often tempted to act like Abraham in this story. We have things we deeply desire, but due to the weight of life and the long years of waiting we beat ourselves down to into believing that second best is good enough. Like Abraham we claim the easy route because that little bit of control is easier on our hearts than holding out hope for the best. Worse still, we may being hearing that message of “second best” from a beaten down world around us.
“Maybe you’re being too picky.”
“You should reevaluate how realistic your standards are.”
“Well don’t be surprised when you don’t get what you want because you wouldn’t change your mind.”
Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. Some of you have heard these words almost exactly, about something you’re longing and hoping for. We hear the message over and over again until it’s so much easier to just lower your standards accordingly until the thing comes more naturally, even if it’s hardly recognizable from what you started wanting.
But our God is not a God of second best.
This conversation with Abraham is not the last time God promises great things to him. Time and time again he reiterates his intention to bring good things to Abraham and give him all the things he’s been longing for.
Abraham is a tricky character. There are a lot of things he royally fouls up, repeatedly. He spends most of his story being a bit of a human disaster. Despite everything God promises he repeatedly attempts to settle for less and he hurts a lot of people along the way doing it. God has to tell him again and again to trust him and Abraham regularly disbelieves him.
But what would Abraham’s story looked like if he believed God the first time? How much hurt and mischance would have been saved if he held fast to those promises instead of trying to make a second best plan work? What would our own lives look like if we held fast to his promises instead of doubting like Abraham?
We won’t get all the things we want in life, but we simply cannot discount God and his promises. If God has told you he is going to do something, it is your responsibility and duty to hold fast to it no matter what those around you say. You and God. That’s the only conversation that matters then, what God is telling you he will do for you. It may be impossible hard and heartbreaking to hold on to that promise and wait.
But the one thing it won’t be? Second best.
Let’s find some joy,
A
Avalon Robinson Author 