Staring at the Stars

"Then God brought Abram outside and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And Abram believed the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." Genesis 15: 5-6

Life is never dull when you're walking with God.

Our culture beckons us to pursue comfort. Relaxation and leisure time are noble worldly pursuits; and the ability to simply not do anything is something that many people work their fingers to the bone for. We find comfort in our toys, our vacations, our retirement, our days off, our technology - lots of things. God says to all who will listen, "Comfort, comfort my people." Is God really calling us, as Christians to pursue this type of leisurely comfort as part of faith walk? Does our salvation give us a free ticket to no longer worry about what may come and therefore relax your way towards heaven - Hakuna Matata.

I believe that the life of a comfortable Christian in this sense is really a misnomer. It makes the Christian life seems easy, and quite frankly, a little boring. God does not call us to a life of dull inactivity. What God calls us to is a life of surrender - "carry your cross and follow me." What God calls us to is a life of radical faith - "follow me and I will make you fisher's of men." What God calls us to is a life of suffering for His name's sake. What God calls us to is a life of thankful obedience. These callings from God certainly do not come across as comfortable to me (at least in our understanding of the word comfort). So what kind of comfort does God offer us in the midst of this radical call to change your lifestyle?

God certainly upset the applecart of Abram's comfortable life. In his old age, God called him to be the father of His children - the person through whom God would interact and bless humanity with. God chose to do this by making Abram an impossible promise, and then by asking him to believe Him, and obey Him no matter how crazy it sounded. Abram, naturally was a little hesitant to the idea. I mean, who wants to have their life turned upside down, from a life of creature comfort to a life of difficulty. Could he believe this promise making God?

God convinced Abram to follow Him in faith, by taking him outside on a beautiful clear night and directing his attention to the skies. He showed him the vastness and beauty of the stars, and said "see all those stars, that's how many descendants you will have, I'm good for it." Abram, at this point, believed the promise keeping God, and as the story goes, God did exactly what He said He would do, and we today are one of those stars he initially gazed upon.

Abram found his comfort, not in his circumstances, but in a promise keeping God. He did not let the impossible or difficult nature of the call dissuade him from following, because in his heavenly gazing, he saw a vast awesome God that dwarfed any impossibility or any difficulty.

The stars have been up there for a long time. Did you ever stop to think that the same stars that God showed Abram, are the same stars that we see in our night sky? When we gaze into the heavens on a clear summer night, we are not only staring galaxies and astronomical occurrences - we are staring firmly into the eyes of an awesome promise keeping God.

The Christian journey is not intended to be comfortable, and as a result it is certainly not dull. God will call you to do impossible and difficult things. He will make promises to you that will seem ludicrous. So why do them? Why pursue this type of illogical comfort?

Just look up at the stars.

Be God's, Scott