It’s amazing who God will use and for what. We’ve been going through Genesis in church and in our small group and learnign a thing or two about the patriarchs. This past Sunday we began looking at Abraham. Abram (as he was originally known) grew up a pagan. He likely believed in many gods and whether or not he ever believed in Yahweh prior to his calling is debatable. Having the one true god show up in his space and talk to him, telling him exactly where to go and what to do changed all that. And well it should. Still it took time for Abram to begin to understand that this God was different in some significant way and that not only did he mean what he said, but that he would deliver on his promises. It took not only time but a pretty epic quest.

That quest is what God used to ultimately lead Abram to believe in the promise to make him a great nation and for that to be “credited it to him as righteousness”. He was also faithful in the binding of Isaac and in his obedience to move where God told him to go. As faithful as he was though, I don’t think it was Abram’s overall faith that made him the patriarch and one of the examples of great men of faith that is lifted up in Hebrews 11. After all, this was also the man that laid with his servant to try and “make” the promise happen. This was the man who told his wife to lie about who she was, not just once but twice. He often questioned God and had troubles believing.

I say these things not to run down a person whom many hold in high esteem, but to give you and I hope. To remind us that God chose this very fallible man and made him into what he needed him to be. God made a covenant with him, knowing that if the man had any end to hold up, that he would fail. In that sense the covenant was unconditional. There was nothing special about Abraham, nothing unique in his character that made God choose him, at least nothing that you or I know of. God simply chose him and did with him what was necessary to fulfill his plan.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

1 Cor 1:26-31

That’s you and me right there. We have no place to boast, just as Abraham had no place to boast. What we do for God and what God does with us is a credit to him, not a feather in our caps. The lives I’ve touched I have only touched because of God’s calling. May I have faith and rest in that and not in my own abilities, the things that are not save for God’s intervention.