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Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18
The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:
“Fear not, Abram!
I am your shield;
I will make your reward very great.”
But Abram said,
“O Lord GOD, what good will your gifts be,
if I keep on being childless
and have as my heir the steward of my house, Eliezer?”
Abram continued,
“See, you have given me no offspring,
and so one of my servants will be my heir.”
Then the word of the LORD came to him:
“No, that one shall not be your heir;
your own issue shall be your heir.”
He took him outside and said:
“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.
Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”
Abram put his faith in the LORD,
who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.
He then said to him,
“I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans
to give you this land as a possession.”
“O Lord GOD,” he asked,
“how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
He answered him,
“Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat,
a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought him all these, split them in two,
and placed each half opposite the other;
but the birds he did not cut up.
Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses,
but Abram stayed with them.
As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram,
and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.
When the sun had set and it was dark,
there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch,
which passed between those pieces.
It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram,
saying: “To your descendants I give this land,
from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River the Euphrates.”
The Word of the Lord.
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All week our first reading has come from the Book of Genesis, as we witness the faith journey of Abraham. He’s an old man now and his wife, Sarah, has borne no children.
So, Abraham grumbles before God, saying, “What good will your gifts be, if I keep on being childless?”
It seems Abraham’s on the brink of despair. God has made an impossible promise: to bless his descendants, something that cannot happen if Abraham has no children.
“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can,” the Lord says to him today. “Just so, shall your descendants be.”
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Strangely, God tells Abraham to look up and count the stars in the middle of the day.
It seems cruel. Although Abraham knows the stars exist, he cannot see them now. God is inviting him to trust. If the Lord has worked wonders before, then why would he not work wonders again?
Before he dies, Abraham has eight sons. Today more than half of the world’s population – over 4 billion people – call Abraham their father in faith.
His descendants as numberless as the stars, as God foretold.
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Like Abraham, do I feel insecure about my future, as if I cannot see the stars?
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In those moments, the same God who blessed Abraham is inviting us to trust. Pray until “dusk.”
Then, God’s plans will be revealed.
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Image credits: (1) iStock (2) Adobe Stock (3) BBC Sky at Night Magazine