June 5, 2005

Believing God's Promise

by Julianne Stokstad

This week as we say goodbye to Ron, Susie and Faune, the lesson about Abram and Sarah leaving their home seemed particularly relevant. Change makes us all uncomfortable, even if it is right and proper and natural, even if it is chosen and in response to God's call. We just don't like saying goodbye. We don't like loss, we don't like the uncertainty, and most of us just don't like change.

I suspect Abraham, our first father in faith, didn't like change either. He didn't have to accept God's call, but he did. When God said, "Go" and Abram "Went". He was an old man with an equally old, barren wife who responded to God's most outrageous promise that he and his children, his non-existent, impossible to be conceived children, would inherit the earth, be blessed by God and become a blessing to all future generations. Abraham wasn't a special holy man, some kind of saint who lived a perfect life, he was a nobody, but what makes him special was that after he chose to accept God's call, he believed God's promise, trusting God with his very life at his age to leave home and go out into the wilderness. I can only imagine Sarah saying, "Abraham, you must be crazy, leave here, our security, our home and go where?"

Promises can be problematic. The dictionary defines promise as a "declaration that something will or will not be done or given." Our own experiences affect how we understand promises. We've probably all heard children plaintively whining, "but you promised we'd do this or that." Our experience of broken promises can affect our trust and beliefs. I'm sure you can all think of a broken promise. A very painful one for me was a promise from my grandmother when she left me to go to England for Queen Elizabeth's coronation. She promised me, a broken hearted ten year old, that she'd be back. She died before coming back.

We've all experienced broken promises. Sometimes people lie to us, sometimes people forget, sometimes circumstances don't allow the keeping of a promise, but broken promises whatever the reason teach us trusting promises can be dangerous. And so it can be. Our culture's current litigious climate leaves little room for trust. Some say public trust has never been lower than it is now.

In many ways, it is easier to be discouraged by a lack of integrity we see around us than it is to look into ourselves and see our own part in this. What about promises we make to ourselves? Promises to improve our relationships within our family, promises to take better care of ourselves? Breaking these promises, as so many of us do, causes a loss in self-esteem and a lowering of our integrity. It's easy to make excuses about ourselves.

What about God's promises? Maybe it's easier to trust God when we've had only good experiences, when we've never known broken trust or abandonment. Perhaps you haven't thought much about God's promise. My parents certainly never talked about it. I didn't learn about it in school. I can't remember thinking God had a promise to me until recently.

I believe most people do have an unconscious assumption about God's promise to take care of them because when something bad happens, it is very common for people to blame or be angry with God. Most people have it wrong. The promise God made to Abraham and to each of us isn't a promise that God will solve all of our problems. It isn't a promise that things we don't like won't happen to us. It can't be because all humans have free will. That means all manner of things can and do happen in this world because of human actions or inactions. Conflict, wars, poverty, ignorance, violence, abuse, illness, suffering and death all happen. We have responsibility and accountability for the choices we make for ourselves and for others by our actions.

Action is the point. Like Abraham, we have to take action to enter into God's promise. It is an offer, a gift, not something forced upon us. We have to accept actively God's promise.

I've come up with four steps involved in this process.

First, we have to hear God's call and promise. To be able to hear means we must have open space in our lives to listen. We must listen in our prayers, to our dreams, to our experiences very carefully. Listening doesn't mean talking, asking, defending, it means listening to our lives, listening deeply with our hearts and minds, all the faculties God gave us.

Second, after we have heard what we think might be God's call to us, we must carefully discern if it is God's voice and not another voice. The voice of our ego can lead us greatly astray. So many people speak in God's name, act in God's name doing horrible things harming our world and other people, all the while thinking they're doing what God wants. Discernment is a dangerous and awesome task, one to be done prayerfully and most carefully. That is why the Bible is so important because it gives us stories to help us discern if it is God's call or not. I was greatly helped by a friend who pointed me to the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5. That is why a healthy community, where people can honestly disagree with us, is so important.

Third, we must choose to act, choose to accept what God is calling us to. We always have choice, and God's call in my experience is like a gentle tug, like a current in a river, pulling us toward God's self. God's call always leads us to grow spiritually.

And finally if we accept God's call, then we have to trust. Perhaps this is the hardest part of the whole process and this is why Paul calls Abraham our faith father. Hearing, discerning, accepting and trusting God's promise, these are the steps.

So if God's promise will not keep us out of trouble and will not give us what we want, why follow it? This is what I know: God doesn't promise us a rose-garden, but God does promise that we are never alone, that God will never abandon us. When we accept God's promise we will be peaceful in a way that is deeper than any peace in this world. We will be joyful, seeing God's presence wherever we are, no matter what is happening. We will be increasingly filled with more and more love and this love will spill out of us as we cannot help but serve others and love others wherever we are. And through our entire journey, we will become whole, healed, holy and fully ourselves. God's call is to all people and it is pure gift, ever offered for us to receive.

It is a unique invitation to each of us to journey from where we are to a new place, a new place God is calling us to. The promise from God is a holy one. People often break promises, that is how we are as humans, but God never does.

My friends, whether you are coming or going, trust God. Trust God, for our God's promise is here, waiting to be accepted. Amen