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Genesis 20: 1-7

¹ Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, ² and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.

 ³ But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”

 ⁴ Now Abimelek had not gone near her, so he said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? ⁵ Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘He is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.”

 ⁶ Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. ⁷ Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all who belong to you will die.”

So, check this out. Abraham screwing up again. You ever wonder why his marriage with Sarah doesn’t seem to have any ups in it? I think that you can see the main problem here. Abraham didn’t seem to want to lead. He seems to consistently try to get out of his responsibility. The only places I can think of, off the top of my head where Abraham does what he is supposed to do are when God tells him specifically what to do (Leave his home, sacrifice Isaac) or when Lot is in mortal danger. I was going to say when his family was in danger, but then I remembered that he sent his mistress, Hagar, and their son out into the desert to die.

Abraham, for all his faith, didn’t lead his family. He barely even tried to. Men, that’s our responsibility. If you don’t want it, don’t get married and don’t have a family. It won’t go well for you.

Anyway, now that I’m done bashing Abe, lets move on to verses 6 and 7. Read over them carefully. Did you notice that God gave Abimelek a choice? Now, I don’t know where you stand on Predestination or Sovereignty and all that. As far as putting a name to it goes, I’m not entirely sure where I stand on it. I believe God is in control of everything in existence, from the motion of galaxies to the particles that make them up. There is not one single atom in this universe outside of his control. I also believe that God is in control of history. His word has prophecies hundreds of years in advance, that are mind blowing in how exact their detail is. But in the same word, He consistently speaks to us as if we have choices.

So what does that mean? How can both be true?

Well, the question depends on how you view time. Some people think that God looks down the corridor of time and sees you putting faith in Jesus and then he orders history to fit that. Others seem to think that God reaches down, moment to moment and forces everything to fit in to his plan.

The problem with both of those views is that it puts God into time. God isn’t a part of time. He is outside of history. that means that he does not see the world moment to moment as we do. He sees the whole thing all at once. When you pray to God as a child, and when you pray to God as an adult, He hasn’t heard one and then the other. He hears both at once (that’s not exactly correct because being human I have to bring time into this just to explain, but I hope you’re following me here).

The God you are praying to today is not experiencing today as you are. That means that your tomorrow, is not his tomorrow. Your today, your yesterday, and your tomorrow are all one for him.

So, choice. Do we make choices or is our future set? I don’t think it’s an either or question. I think that both are true. You have choices to make, but (I think) from God’s perspective, you’ve already made them.

Here’s the practical upshot of all this. Let’s say God does know every choice you’ll make. That means that he knows what the worst thing you’ll ever do is. He can actually calculate how bad you are going to be over the course of your life. He could play a highlight reel of all your mistakes, embarrassments, and every stupid mean thing you’ll ever do.

He loves you anyway. Think about that for a moment. When you meet someone, you have no real basis on which to guess what kind of person they’ll be. You don’t know if they’ll betray you, love you, or if you’ll never see them again. You have to decide whether or not to be friends with them based entirely on your impression of them. And they could be lying to you.

That is not how it works for God. He knows you down to your rotten core. And he chooses to take you and make something beautiful out of you. Nifty huh?