Abram, also known as Abraham, after rescuing his nephew, Lot, from Kedolaomer in Genesis 14 was promised by God in a vision in this chapter. God promised him protection and blessings. Abram’s response to God’s promise was: What else can you give me when I am childless as I have no one to inherit my estate except my servant, Eliezer of Damascus?

This showed that Abram’s concern was more about having an heir to his name than anything else in his life. As he looked at his wife and himself in their old age, he is like someone who looks at the cup as half-empty instead of half-full. Thus, he resigned to a pessimistic outlook thinking that he will have to leave his inheritance to his servant instead of his own heir.

Many of us are like Abram, we looked at our circumstances and resigned ourselves to hopelessness instead of hopefulness. So, God told Abram to look up to the skies above him. God said to Abram that his descendants will be like the stars in the sky, countless. They will be so plentiful that he would be unable to count them like the stars in the sky. God was talking about his future descendants from his line and not the immediate ones alone. As his descendants will become a nation as the Bible will show us.

So, God told him to look up instead of around to get a new perspective. Many of us are like Abram, we need to “look up” to get a new perspective especially after these two years of the pandemic. And now we have the Russia-Ukraine war, and the “rumor of wars” (between China and Taiwan/US) that we are hearing as well. We may be worried and losing hope of the future like Abram who was worried about the things in his life. God may have something bigger like what He had for Abram that we need to look up to Him for.

In verse 6, we are told that Abram, after receiving the vision, “Believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”God also reminded him of who He is and what He did to bring him out of the Ur of Chaldeans and give him this land to possess. And He told Abram to offer sacrifices to Him. The three verbs in verses 7, 9, and 11, “give,” “bring,” and “drove” suggest that faith requires actions too. For faith in God does not mean we do nothing. Faith in God must be followed with acts of obedience. For even when God provided the Israelites with manna in the wilderness, they had to go and collect them for food.

When God gives us a promise, we must believe, and upon believing we must act by living a life of faith and righteousness. Second, faith in God also does not mean we will not have doubts. But the doubts should not make us helpless or hopeless but instead it must bring us to trust God even more!