When we are tempted to do things our own way, we must remember that God has put us in these circumstances so we’ll learn to totally depend on Him and trust in His promises. True obedience is doing what God says, when He says, and how He says to do it. But the only plan that will fail is ours because the Lord never supports disobedience but works solely to accomplish His will in our lives. Furthermore, we think God will understand why we had to change direction. We look around at the situation, forget that God is our Provider and Protector, and substitute what He’s said in His Word with our own plan, reasoning that His way won’t work. We often make the same mistake Abraham made. The Lord would have been faithful to care for him and fulfill all His promises to him. When we forget that God is both our Provider and Protector, we sometimes want to take matters into our own hands.Ībraham should have dealt with his fear by staying in Canaan and seeking God’s protection and provision. However, as reasonable as his plan seemed, even a temporary journey away from God’s will can have disastrous results. He probably considered this trip to Egypt as only temporary, thinking he’d come back to Canaan when conditions improved. Changing circumstances are never a reason to stop trusting the Lord.įaith gives way to fear when we make decisions based on human reason.Ībraham reasoned that the way to survive was to go to Egypt where there was food. Instead of looking around him, Abraham should have remembered God’s promises and relied on Him to keep His word. What Abraham saw as unexpected and frightening, God viewed as an opportunity for Abraham to trust Him. 10).įaith gives way to fear because our focus moves from God to our circumstances.Ībraham had kept his eyes on the Lord throughout his journey and had obediently settled in the land and worshipped Him, thanking Him for His protection and provision. “There was a famine in the land,” and he became fearful (v. But before long, a situation arose that caused him to doubt the Lord. After arriving, he built altars to worship the Lord and pitched his tent there (vv. In faith and obedience, Abraham left his home and traveled to Canaan. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. When the Lord first spoke to him, He gave him clear instructions and unconditional promises, saying, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great and so you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. One of the reasons we change routes and disobey God is because our faith gives way to fear.Ībraham (originally called Abram) is an example of someone whose faith gave way to fear. Yet once we start down the new path, we soon discover that we’ve made a terrible mistake. Therefore, we decide on our own to make a course correction, thinking that we have obviously gone the wrong way. Maybe that route isn’t as easy as we thought it would be, or it isn’t leading where we want to go. Sometimes we believe that God is leading us in a certain direction, but as we continue down that path, we become discouraged and uncertain because things aren’t working out as we expected.
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