ENCOUNTER WITH GOD: ABRAM #1

[Gen. 12:1-4] Abram was called by God at the age of 75. I wonder if he had ever heard God's voice before that? Whatever his previous experience, this was an unmistakable call to pull up roots at a rather advanced age and begin a new adventure of faith.
The call for sacrifice came with a promise—that God will make Abram the father of a great nation, that he will be blessed and will change the world for the better. Armed with that encouraging word, Abram went willingly. He built altars along the way, on which he sacrificed (we assume) the best of the firstborn of a sheep or of an ox, and he worshiped God through that sacrifice.
[Gen. 15:1-3] But there was a problem. The promise sounded wonderful, but Abram and Sarai were childless, so how could they change the world and father a nation when they had no children? God promised the old man that he would, in fact, have a son. And again the Lord sealed the conversation with a prophetic promise that Abram’s descendants would be numerous like the stars, too many to count.
Abram believed God, at least for the moment, and the Lord even declared Abram righteous for his faith. They shared a mysterious covenant promise with more specific prophetic details about what would come.
[Gen. 16:1ff] Not too long after that majestic promise, however, Abram and Sarai took a look at reality and found it lacking. It had been ten years, and the Lord was saying nice words every decade or so, but Abram was now 85 years old, and he still had no son. The biological deadline had passed in Sarai’s mind, and Abram agreed. Time to try to fulfill God’s promise with a “near miss,” that perhaps caught the essence of the promise but made an idealistic promise more realistic: Maybe if Abram slept with Sarai’s handmaid, it would be “almost” the same, and Abram would still be the father of a nation through her.
It never works to try to bring about God’s perfect promise through human compromise. Or, rather, it seems to work, but only causes greater problems down the road. To this day, the world is a war largely because of the offspring of Ishmael fighting against their cousins.
[Gen. 17:1ff] Another decade and a half of silence from God, and Abram is now 99 years old. God has the audacity to show up way too late and speak his prophetic promise again. This time, the promise is even grander, and it includes a name change for Abraham. God requires Abraham to enter the covenant with the sign of circumcision for him and his male descendants. God changes Sarah’s name, as well.
Now it was almost too much. Abraham must be thinking, “Why torment me with empty words? I’m almost 100 years old, my wife is 90. Nice promises, but WHERE’S THE BABY?” It makes him laugh, and then makes Sarah laugh at the incredibility of it all. So God tells them to name him Laughter Boy, and a year later, Isaac is born!