God is SO in Control

I was reading Genesis this week, and was enjoying the story about Abram and Sarai again...How God told Abram he would have a son from whom would come descendants as numerous as the stars (I am not sure I would believe that if I were over 80 and childless, frankly)....That they had trouble believing is not even in question here to me, and after several years I would imagine that of course Sarai felt like she was not capable of fulfilling the promise (and perhaps thought she wasn't qualified, since God had promised her husband, not her)...

So goes Sarai to take matters into her own hands and tell her husband that the her maidservant could bear this anointed son....It would appear, as well, that Abram agreed with her that perhaps *she* was the problem in the fulfillment of His promise...

Do I ever do things like this? Take over when it *appears* that what God has promised me might not be happening and what I believe about my inability makes more sense than what God has said? Do I doubt His very word to me ~ the Creator of our Universe, Alpha and Omega, Father of all, capable of all things?! I have to laugh at that questi0n as I often do doubt ~ Lord increase my faith!

However, what was most interesting to me this week was the longer range of God's plan and perfect provision ~ let me share with you some of Chapter 15 (before Sarai takes matters into her own hands)

4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. "

God then cuts covenant with Abram as a binding agreement to be responsible for the fulfillment of what He has promised...

12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."

This was the part that stood out to me...God is talking about the next FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.
He also states fourth generation they would return ~ Let's count...Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Joseph...one, two, three...during the fourth generation (Manasseh's), Moses delivered Israel (descendants of Jacob, who was renamed "Israel" by God) from the Egyptians. They had been enslaved for just over 400 years.

Now, God got Israel to Egypt through Joseph and his brothers (sons of Jacob). They became slaves after Joseph died, and were mistreated until Moses came along, upon God's hand, and got them out of Egypt to return to their "promised land."

If God can plan so much in advance, knowing all that would transpire and orchestrating it *just so* to work in His perfect timing, despite our waywardness, lack of faith, and all other sinful life choices, how much more can He walk us through the current economic and dark times?! Praise God that He is always faithful to His promises ~ "But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast "(Hebrews 3:6) Amen?