December 3

Farther Than He Could See

Somewhere in the boxes that come down this month there is usually something older than anyone in the room. A wooden figure with the paint worn off its face, a card in handwriting nobody living recognizes. The hands that made those things are long gone. What they made is still here, doing quietly what it was made to do.

Advent opens with a promise built that way, spoken to a man who would not live to see the far end of it. God tells Abram to leave his country and his father's house for a land God does not even name yet. Then the promise comes, and it widens as it goes, from a great nation and a great name to blessing for everyone who blesses him, and finally out past anything one man could hold: all the families of the earth. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out, and he would live the rest of his days as a stranger in the country he had been given.

Years went by and there was still no son. In Genesis 15 God brings Abram outside under the night sky and tells him to count the stars, and says his offspring will be as many. Abram believes him. Scripture records the moment in one sentence that Paul would later build a whole argument on.

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Get out of your country, and from your relatives, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you."

Genesis 12:1-3

The Lord brought him outside, and said, "Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." He said to Abram, "So will your offspring be." He believed in the Lord, who credited it to him for righteousness.

Genesis 15:5-6

Abram was agreeing to a great deal when he believed. He would see part of it, a son born long after hope was reasonable, while the largest share would arrive generations after his burial. The letter to the Hebrews says the patriarchs died in faith, having seen the promises from a distance and welcomed them without ever holding them.

Matthew's Gospel opens by naming Jesus the son of David, the son of Abraham. The blessing meant for every family on earth arrives in a child, and when God spoke that promise over a childless man under the stars, he had Christ in view.

Much of what God gives us to do has the same shape. If you are praying for someone who is not walking with him, the answer may come in a year you do not live to see. Faithfulness handed down to children, service given to a church, a kindness done for someone who can never repay it, all of it goes out from us into time we do not control. God is untroubled by work that outlasts the worker, and he has never yet needed one lifetime to be long enough.

Ask him for what is larger than the years you have. Name it, then go on obeying in the ordinary way in front of you. The promise rests on the God who made it, and he is able to carry it far past the edge of your sight.

Lord, you make promises that outlast the people who receive them. Give me Abram's faith for the part I will never see, and obedience today. In Christ you have kept your word. I believe you. Lead me on.