The Growth of Faith

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: (Genesis 12:1)

I want us to get into the assumption game to be able to understand what I want us to learn. And it is not assumption as we normally take it. We actually want to postulate Abraham’s life prior to his taking the step of obedience by leaving his people and lands.

What is clear in our verse is that God had spoken to Abram earlier. God’s order came much earlier than Abram’s obedience.

How long did it take? What was the cost to that step? Was there collateral damage due to the delay?

I believe God called His friend when he was alone, probably before he even got married to Sarah; or maybe soon after he got married. (God asked me to leave employment a month into my marriage)

Then he would just have needed a bag or two and probably a donkey or two to ferry him and his wife.

God loves simplicity and will thus make our obedience as easy as possible. We many times complicate His call with our logic (or the logic of our circles)

Abram therefore battles with the call as he seeks to make sense of his obedience. But as he dilly dallies with the decision the world goes on. He starts acquiring wealth and becomes heavier in many other respects. And like most of us he also starts looking for people who can make sense of that calling to probably stand with him.

After his explanation, his father decides to accompany him as we see in chapter 11, thereby complicating God’s order. You see Abram was asked to leave ALL, people and things.

Terah becomes the first casualty of Abram’s growth of faith as he was outside God’s equation.

Then the call is renewed once again. But he had carried an orphaned nephew who was also not part of the call. Probably Lot came of his own accord. But he also was among the ones who were to be left. God had to also get him out of the equation.

But you also realize that Abram’s faith was growing. At this time we see him offering the best choice to Lot as he is now certain that God’s leading is sure. We also see God confessing that he will instruct his children in God’s ways as the reason He leaked the news of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra to him.

But there was another complication that had to be dealt with, Ishmael, who was a desperate decision of Sarah as it seemed that maybe she was excluded from the promise since the promised child was not forthcoming.

It is after he goes that the call gets confirmed (tested if that makes you feel better). At this time it is Abraham, the promise and God.

He is asked to choose between the Promise and God. But this time he is fully matured to make His call rid of any encumbrances. And God confesses the same.

How long did it take?

My argument is that he heard the call in his twenties, let’s assume 25.

He finally responds to the call the way it came 50 years later.

The son comes 75 years after the call.

The son is at the least teenager when the call is confirmed. I say this because he and not the father carried the firewood to the altar. For our calculation let us take him to be 15 years old.

Simple math will tell us that it took 90 years between when the call was received and when it was confirmed.

In between we see the death of Terah, the cursing of kingdoms because Abraham’s faith was not yet mature to face certain situations, Lot’s disappearance from the discourse and even Ishmael’s and Hagar’s dispatch.

What am I driving at?

Faith is not something you purchase at a mall; or a church for that matter. Faith is a seed of slow growth, the soil and rain of which is a growing relationship with God. It does not grow by psych; or motivation. It grows through our interaction with God’s word, not man’s interpretation of that word.

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17)

Those interpreters may end up becoming like Terah, who will want to soften or dilute the orders faith will demand. Or like Lot, who though he is with us all the way is looking for something different from our pursuit. Maybe Ishmael, who stands for the logical solution to that call we have received.

They may be like those kings who will thoroughly threaten our call to the point that we compromise our values and standards or the drought that will insist that we go to those dangerous places.

But that is faith.

Show me a man of faith who never went through such phases and I will show you a fake. In the Bible it is only that we are given glimpses of men of faith that we assume that they are superstars.

We assume that Elijah just appeared when we see him proclaiming to the king that it won’t rain until he says so. To some, we even discount the wrestling he has later as so unlike him because we see him as different from us and so lacking in the struggles we have. Yet James also discounts that.

Moses was 80 years in the making. Joseph was 13 in the testing. David was 30 in the making.

Where do you fall? Are you a glucose product of faith?

What do you feed your faith with? Is it the unadulterated word of God or the motivational preaching of imposters? Is it built on obedience or your planting a seed to particular centres?

What word have you received from God? Have you really received or has it been implied so by somebody? Is your spiritual supervisor your source of your spiritual direction or you receive it directly from God through His word?

I am pushing this so hard because if God is not the direct source of your orders (even promptings to grow your faith), He really has nothing to do with what you are calling faith. You finalise with God first before you talk of faith, a faith that has nothing to do with psych, a faith that is hard work whichever direction you look, yet fulfilling to the utmost.

The duration faith takes to mature is many times determined by the prevailing circumstances. Abraham and Moses were surrounded by idolatry. But even there faith prevails by breaking through those rocks of rebellion and resistance to God’s will.

Among the worst rocks, probably harder than idolatry, is the environment of backsliding, a community being led by someone who was once on fire for God but ‘arrived’ when they got status or comfort. They then sought (and still seek) to rationalize their fall from faith by showing how much they are still in faith. That environment is extremely toxic to faith.

If your pastor consistently recycles testimonies again and again; if his sermons also enjoy the same, it is very probable that they abandoned the train of faith long ago. If they are only preaching about what you get instead of what spiritual breakthroughs you should be experiencing; if all they preach about concerns only here and now as opposed to eternity, again they are simply walking in the flesh. If God only gives a word for the whole year and has nothing for our day to day experience of faith, it is possible that their faith is cut and dried and stopped growing long ago.

Run from such clowns, however enjoyable and exalted their empty proclamations appear. They will kill your faith in God. Even worse is that they will transfer that faith to things of this earth by filling your expectation with what God must do as opposed to where He will have you go.

If giving is the answer all, from a difficult boss to a rebellious child; if you must buy this oil or that soil or that book, run away from that witchcraft. If Israel is the final destination of your faith instead of greater obedience, you are expensively deceived.

These are a few of the things God has to take us from to be able to connect sorely on Him for the growth of our faith. And they fall under the seed that fell among thorns in Christ’s parable of the sower.

Like Abraham we must come away from the faith and lands of our fathers to be able to get to the land God has prepared for us. We must connect directly to Him to ensure that the faith of those we come from is the same faith God is calling us to. And I presume that is the reason Christ said that we call no one on earth father, especially a pastor, because a father has the capacity to determine the direction one’s life follows. It is also difficult to divorce a father I have imposed on myself.

Where is your faith? What impediments are you dealing with to grow that faith? Do you clearly know them?

Where does God’s word lie in your priorities? Is God and His revelation (Bible) the only source of your inspiration and direction? Will you, like Abraham decide to go ONLY where He chooses to show you or must you have a map or logical explanation for that calling?

Has your call ever been confirmed through testing? When was the last time you had options like were placed on Abraham on Mount Moriah?