By Todd Paetznick, September 12, 2024

The answer to whose side God may be on is not as straightforward as we might like.  It’s fall, and football season has started.  Does God favor one team over another?  Is God a Georgia Bulldogs fan?  Does He favor my business efforts over people who are not Christians?  Is there a business advantage to being a Christ-follower?  

A quick survey of the Bible will show that the people God chose to be in leadership roles did not always experience the success they expected despite being personally selected by God.  There is much we can learn from their stories and examples.  Over the next few weeks, we will explore the sometimes surprising ways God operates in the lives and circumstances of people He selected for greatness.   

Spoiler alert:  God is on His own side.  

Abraham’s Story 

Abraham is considered the father of nations and the father of faith. But at times, he must have felt that God had forgotten about him and wondered whether God was not really on his side.  

It had been decades since God had told Abram (his name at the time) to leave his home and travel to a land God would show him.  After many years, God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the wrongdoing of the Amorite is not yet complete” (Genesis 15:13-16 NASB20).

In essence, God told Abram that his descendants would be enslaved and subsequently emancipated from Egypt.  Why would God foretell the future enslavement of Abram’s descendants and do nothing about it in advance?  

Also, notice the last part of the Genesis passage, “. . . for the wrongdoing of the Amorite is not yet complete.”  That little statement says a lot about whose side God is on.  The Amorites were not God’s chosen people, and yet God paid attention to them.  The judgment of the Amorite cities for their rebellion against God was delayed by hundreds of years until it was complete.  (More on this next week)

In the next chapter of Genesis (16), Abram was 86 years old. He still had no heir, and his wife, Sari (her name at the time), had no children. Abram attempted to help God by proposing to make the son of one of his servants his heir. Then, Abram and Sari thought it would be a good idea for Abram to have a child through Sari’s servant, Hagar. But that was not what God had in mind for them.  A child coming into the world in the usual way was not unique enough to bring God the glory He sought.  God was on His own side.  Abram and Sari having a baby in their old age was a miracle only God could arrange.  

Thirteen years following their last visit from God, Abram was now 99, and his much younger wife, Sari, was 90, and they still did not have a child of their own.  But God showed up and again promised them a son.  Both Abram and Sari laughed at the news.  (This led to their son Issac’s name, which means “he laughed”).  

 We can learn at least a half-dozen lessons from Abraham’s story.    

1. We are impatient and think we need to help God when we do not get what we want when we want it.  God never needs our help.
2. God is on His own side.  If God can be glorified in a circumstance, that is what we should expect will happen.
3. We do not know everything.  Our knowledge is limited in time and location.  God knows our future, and everyone else’s too.  He is never surprised and actively orchestrates circumstances for His glory and that of His Kingdom.
4. God’s sense of urgency and ours are not the same.  Patience is a virtue.
5. Miracles are not hard for God.  As the creator of everything, God can disrupt whatever we may think is a natural occurrence and otherwise impossible to change.  
6. Humility and reliance on God are learned when we realize we cannot accomplish something independently.