Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

FOR THE FIRST part of their life together, Abraham and Sarah worshiped many gods. Then they received a visit from the one true Creator God, who said, in effect, “I have chosen you to become My models of faith.

AS ABRAHAM and Isaac headed up the mountain, before Abraham knew how God would intervene, he assured his son that God would provide the sacrifice.

SOME YEARS after receiving Isaac, as promised by God, the time had come for Abraham’s faith to be put to the supreme test. God is, of course, omniscient.

WHEN HAGAR was forced to leave Abraham’s camp, she wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba, a region roughly thirty miles southwest of Hebron.

GENESIS 21 gives the account of a man whose previous sin now haunts him and harms the people he loves. The birth of Abraham’s long-awaited heir, Isaac, gave him and Sarah great joy, but their delight became tinged with regret.

LONG AFTER Abraham and Sarah had given up hope of experiencing this joy, they held their very own son in their arms. It would have been easy for them to lose hope.

AT LONG LAST, at the appointed time, Abraham and Sarah received the fulfillment of God’s promise. Ninety-year-old Sarah gave birth to a son and, in obedience to God, named him Isaac, which means “he laughs.”

GOD ISN’T in a hurry, so He didn’t have a problem waiting a quarter century before fulfilling His promise and allowing Abraham and Sarah to conceive. Who knows why He waited that long?

THE BIRTH of a newborn is a momentary event, taking place in a matter of hours, but at that moment, life has only just begun. Growth and maturity occur steadily and gradually as a child develops from infancy to young adulthood.

WHEN GOD paid His visit to Sodom and Gomorrah, these twin cities controlled a lush, fertile valley through which ran the Jordan River.

LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I approached prayer simplistically when I first learned how to pray. Ask God for what you want. If you ask Him correctly or impress Him sufficiently, He just might grant your request. Or not.

NEARLY TWENTY-FIVE years had passed since the Lord first spoke to Abram in Ur. Since then, his spiritual roots had pushed deep into the soil of faith in his God. At long last, he trusted in the Lord’s promise and rested in His sovereign will.

THIRTEEN YEARS passed, and Abram didn’t hear anything from God. There was no vision. There was no voice. There was no visit. Only silence. Try to imagine: complete silence on God’s part for thirteen years.

BY THE TIME Ishmael arrived, Abram had turned eighty-six. If we skip ahead to read about the birth of Isaac, the true son of Abram’s covenant with God, we’ll see Abram was one hundred years old then.

WHEN LOT was making a decision about which land to choose, he didn’t consider God as a factor in shaping his future. He made all his calculations based upon the potential influences of nature and humanity.

MOST OF US rise to meet adversity with our best character. However, our true character comes out when things go really well. It’s easy to become arrogant, self-sustaining, conceited, greedy, and condescending at such times.

ABRAM LIED to Pharaoh to save his own skin, telling him that Sarai was his sister. In doing so, he put her in jeopardy. But where he failed to protect his wife, the Lord overwhelmingly succeeded in doing so.

FOR ABRAM, this season of hunger represented a major test. While God didn’t cause the famine, He certainly used it as an instrument in the development of Abram’s faith.

AFTER SPENDING much of his life—perhaps from birth—in Ur of the Chaldeans, Abram was instructed by God to go to a place to be disclosed later.

GOD’S CALL of Abram began with an imperative—a clear command. God told him to leave his country for a land that He would show him . . . sometime later.