When I was growing up, my father managed the New York Life office in Montgomery, Alabama. I had very little idea of what that meant except that I got brand new pencils every time we stopped by. When I asked why I could always get another box, he said, “Well, because they’re all mine, they’re all yours, of course!”

Managing the office also meant he brought home the men he hoped to hire. They were engaging around the dinner table–prospective life insurance agents were always outgoing. I knew they were kind to me because they hoped Daddy would hire them. I learned young: there were definite perks to being his daughter.

But the pencils went beyond the attention of strangers. They were something tangible I could hold. I used them up as fast as the diaries I wrote in. And they got me noticed: I took them to school and passed them around.

Having status because of your Daddy is heady business.

Genesis 13-15

Abram pushes back. Three times God appears to him, promising land and more descendants than he can count, but Abram says it doesn’t mean much, “what use are your gifts as long as I’m childless?” An heir is what he wants more than anything else, Ge 15:2-3 MSG.

I’m glad Abram’s faith sometimes faltered. Mine does, too. While he believed God enough to leave his father’s family and travel to the place God showed him, he had no idea what would happen along the way. Already he had to fight in a battle against four kings to get Lot, his nephew, and all his people and possessions back. Ge 12:1-4; 14.

He won, but afterwards he’s afraid of the kings’ payback. They’re powerful and now they’re hacked, and here he is, camping out in the open and wondering what’s next. God’s promises of protection, land, and descendants seem distant without even one child to carry on yet.

So God took him outside to count the stars, “Can you do it? Count your descendants! You’re going to have a big family, Abram!” God doesn’t scold him for failing to trust what he’s already promised. He simply renews his covenant with enthusiasm, and Abram believes God all over again, Ge 15:1-6 MSG.

It was then when God said Abe’s faith made him right with him, “Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” It wasn’t Abram’s goodness that connected them—it was his faith in God’s goodness to keep his word to him, Ge 15:1-6 NIV.

Then Abram asks how he can be sure that what God’s said will happen. Though he believes what God’s told him, he wants an assurance beyond words that what he’s promised will come true—a contract of some kind would seal the deal—and God gives him one. He tells Abe to get one of each of these—a cow, a goat, a sheep, a dove, and a pigeon, Ge 15:7-9.

Abram knows what God’s doing. In those days, it was customary to make a contract with someone by halving animals and “signing” it in blood by walking between them. Animal blood would flow together in the middle, where the signers walked. So Abram gathers the animals God asks for and cuts the livestock in half, but the birds he leaves whole, and he arranges the pieces opposite each other, (see commentary), Ge 15:9-21.

The contract God signs with its symbolism points to the Savior he’d send who saves Abram’s unborn children. Jesus is the pleasing aroma, the Light of the World, whose blood was spilled for those who trust God like Abram did. God does the contract making and the signing with the blood of his Son.

Then Abram falls into a deep sleep and when it’s dark, God himself passes between the pieces as a smoking firepot and a blazing torch. He repeats his covenant promise again to give Abram all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates Rivers, Ge 15:18.

Abram doesn’t walk between the pieces. He’s sound asleep, after all, and sees all this in some sort of dream. Only God passes between the sacrifices because this is God’s deal. He’s the one who makes it and keeps it, and because it depends on who he is, it can’t be broken.

I love how Abram simply received this signed contract. It wasn’t dependent on him or anything he did—Abram’s faith was in God and what he did.

Paul wrote about this passage in Genesis and pointed out that Abram’s believing God and being declared right with him because of it, happened before he was even circumcised, in what became a requirement of God’s law. This is heartening, because it means there’s not one thing we can do to make or break our connection with God. It’s simply a matter of believing he’s done it all for us, Ro 4, Ga 3.

My faith flares and falters, ebbs and flows. I’m thankful my relationship with God depends on him and not on how well I live or trust him. The prophets I read through at the end of last year said the same thing—God does all the work of saving, so I get to enjoy the benefits, which are way more than mere pencils and table talk. There’s help with my sticky people, comfort when I’m rejected, understanding in confusing situations, hope in the dark, and joy regardless of everything. My cup overflows.

The offer God makes in his covenant sounds too good to be true, and it is. It’s also too good not to be true. This is the God who wants us so much, that he does all that it takes to make us his, even while we’re sleeping, and down to sacrificing his own Son.

This Daddy promises to make us his and keeps it at great cost.

Matthew 5:27-48

If you’re counting on your good behavior to save you, well, good luck with that. Jesus says, “be perfect like God is,” and my heart sinks. Perfect? Mt 5:48 NIV.

Jesus teaches a whole new way to interpret the law, the way of loving God and others rather than of trying to measure up. Instead of setting aside God’s law, he goes deeper and teaches what it really means.

It was hard enough to follow the law before, but once Jesus gets hold of it, it’s absolutely impossible—which either makes you give up, knuckle down, or turn to the Savior. I’ve tried all of these. There’s really only one choice that’s any good.

My inner world, v 27-30; my outer world, v 31-32; my mouth, v 33-37; my injuries, v 38-42; my enemies, v 43-48—all of these are to be ruled by the law of love. I can’t do it, but Jesus in me can.

I choose him.

This Daddy’s heart is seen in his son’s insistence on love.

Psalm 6

David says he’s getting beat up by his enemies, and God won’t stop it. He knows nothing happens that God’s not in charge of, so he goes to God and asks him to lighten up, “…no more trips to the woodshed…how long will it take for you to let up?” Ps 5:1-3 MSG.

This is the part of God’s fathering I don’t like—the discipline, the heartache, the suffering he brings or allows, I’m not sure which words to use to write about it.

Call it what you will, but David’s calling it like he sees it: he’s “black and blue, beaten up badly in bones and soul.” He’s tired of crying, his bed’s floating with tears, his “eyes are black sockets,” and he’s nearly blind groping in darkness, Ps 6:2-7 MSG.

Somewhere between the agony of verse 7 and the words of verse 8, God comes along and kicks butt. He answers David’s cries for help, every single one. And his enemies are disgraced in the process, “they turn tail and run,” Ps 6:8-10 MSG

God’s got him. God’s got us. “Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning,” David writes elsewhere. There’s nothing we go through that God’s not part of, watching and waiting for just the right moment to step in for us. Will we trust him while we wait for him? Ps 30:5 NASB.

I’ve been in the desert for a long time. It’s only because I’m convinced that God’s a good Father and that what he brings, or allows, is best for me, that I can bear it. It helps to know I can be honest, like David was. I don’t have to pretend it’s not hard.

God’s love never leaves me alone as I walk through the valley of the shadow. What he sends drives me deeper into him, where there’s always safety and shelter and a party going on, Ps 24.

This Daddy teaches and meets us, right where we are.

Prayer

God, Thank you for being the Father who doesn’t throw me out for faith fails, but draws me in. Thank you for Jesus, who makes our connection. Death Valley is hard, but you keep showing up. It is well with me.

In Jesus’ name.

Proverbs 1:29-33

Lady Wisdom says when you pay attention to her, you can sit back and relax. You can take it easy, because “you’re in good hands.”

Passages in Genesis, Matthew, Psalms and Proverbs are selected for today in The Yearly Bible.