Grains of Sand

Walking along the beach on a beautiful sunny morning, the Words of God that ran through my mind were 

"more numerous than the sand on the seashore."  

I paused... looked in front and behind me.  The beach stretched as far as I could see in both directions and I began to imagine all the beaches that I have visited.  It's quite an illustration to think about anything being more numerous than the grains of sand on the seashore.

Grains of sand...  each so tiny...  so many! 

I think of God's promises to Abraham.  Still childless at the age of 75, the Lord challenged Abraham to count the number of stars in the sky and promising that his heirs would be more numerous than that!   It took another twenty-five years later before Isaac, the son of promise, was born.  It's a long story of promises, faith, obedience, disobedience, forgiveness and restoration.  He left his country to go to a strange land, there were family conflicts that resulted in separation, there was adultery and abandonment.  

It's messy!

There was failure!

Walking with God is a journey!  

Many years later in the New Testament, Paul writes: 

We walk by faith and not by sight.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:7  

Sometimes the journey is filled with joy and at other times sorrow.  

Sometimes the steps are clear and at other times it's like groping in the dark.  

It's not that God's not clear, it's that our human understanding is clouded.  

That may sound trite...  But, it's true.  I have met some brilliant people, but none compare to the one who spoke creation into being!  It's hard to imagine that such a vast and complex universe that works with such precision and order could have been formed without intelligent design.

God is constantly at work on our behalf,
seeking to redeem and restore humanity.  

He can't bless sin, but he does bless obedience!

Here, we come to the point where the Lord is testing Abraham: 

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”  GENESIS 22:15-18

The blessing follows obedience!

Abraham now had enough experience with God
to know that He always kept his promises
and this encouraged Abraham's obedience when God spoke. 

Where is God calling you to believe him and trust him?  

It may be in believing that He is who he says he is.  It may be in other steps of faith. Abraham waited 25 years for the first step of God's promise to come to fulfillment.  As for the grains of sand, they are still being formed as one by one, people around the globe believe God at His word and act accordingly.  

Who will be blessed because of your obedience?

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.  PSALM 139:17-18

The Lord is true to His Word! 

A Mighty Fortress by Christy Nockels