Abram Must Also Trust God

WE can also now understand why God permitted Abram to fail, why a famine came in the land of plenty. It was to test Abram and to bring out of it something greater than could have been done in any other way. God seems to test Abram to see whether he will trust God. If Abram had said, “Well, here is a famine and there is all kinds of food in Egypt, but I’m going to trust God alone, I’m going to stay right here, even if I have to starve to death, I’m not going to go, I’m going to stay where God placed me, I’m not going to go until God tells me to go”—if Abram had said that, I am sure that God, who was able to use the ravens to bring the food to Elijah and rain manna from heaven for Israel, would not have failed Abram in this hour. But Abram listened to the flesh and said, “There’s all kinds of food in Egypt; here the land is all parched and dry. God wants me to use my head, doesn’t He? I’m going to Egypt.” And right there he made his mistake. For God after all is faithful. Is it not strange that Abram had trusted God when he left the Ur of the Chaldees and had come all the way to Canaan, but he could not trust God to keep him after he got there? Do you get the point, or shall I make it clearer? Abram trusted God to save him, but he could not trust God to keep him. Regarding his being kept, Abram felt that he had to do something himself. There are thousands of poor souls today who trust God to save their souls, and then think that they have to do the rest. They cannot trust God to keep them, even to the end.

There is another lesson here. We trust God for eternal things, but we do not dare to trust Him for the material. We say, “Amen, hallelujah, Jesus is my Saviour; I know whom I have believed; hallelujah for salvation” but the moment something goes wrong, all our joy is gone. One of the family gets sick; then we begin to doubt, and cannot trust the Lord any more. Someone has said that God is still waiting to show what He can do for anyone who dares to trust Him all the way. Let me say this to some of you anxious worriers, who worry the way you do because you cannot trust Him: You have trusted God for eternity, but you cannot trust Him for this week, or this day. Then, like Abram, you go down in the pit of despair.

Adapted and modified excerpts from Studies in the Life of Abraham by M. R. De Haan (1891-1964)
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.