Time: 1 Year.
Place: The Gerar
Characters: Sarah, Abimelech, Abraham.
Abraham ventured forward into Gerar, staying there for a whole year.
Gerar was a place where he was a stranger with a wife, a stranger who was the sole one responsible for how well his family dwelt in the land. He felt that God could not be in this place. Gods ruled the household; Abraham's household was far from this bleak barren less land. I do know this feeling at times; my home in Longmont Colorado is far from my home in Lakeland Florida.
Abraham attempts to take matters into his own hands. He like all of us should have learned by now that it is never good to take matters into your own hands. Why did he not trust God? What was his deal?
First, Abraham did not have the hindsight that many of us have. He was born into a household where Pagan Self Actualization was the Modus Operandi. The Pagan World View had warped his point of view. He was looking into the world with what he thought was clear eyes, but was actually a fun house view point. He knew that many Gods were involved with man's fate. Fate was clearly in the hand of the individual so the individual was responsible for shaping the future. One was rewarded for how well one choose to live in one's "Choose Your Own Levantian Adventure".
So Abraham continues to be between two worlds, the one distorted one, or the truth found in the LORD. As M. Henry says, "We often trouble ourselves, and even are led into temptation and sin by groundless suspicion."
It matters that the truth prevails through the dimly lit horizon.
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