Episode 161: God Might Be Speaking—How Can You Be Sure? (Genesis 12 Study)

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Today Counts Show Episode 161

Preview

Gary Harpst: Okay, I believe you can save me, but I don’t believe you can handle this thing over here—my own inconsistency.

Winston Harris: There had to be some level of attraction to the call, right? Something about what God was saying Abraham had to think it was attractive to actually move. He’s moving into some pretty drastic environments, into some pretty intense spaces. What would have caused him to move? Something that was–

Hey everybody, before we jump into today’s episode, we’d like to recognize all those who make this podcast possible. The Lead Today Show is supported by all the generous donors of the Lead Today Community. Thank you so much for investing in shaping leaders through this podcast. Be sure to like and subscribe on whatever platform you are watching or listening today. All right, let’s jump into the podcast.

Jim Piper: Hey everybody, welcome back to The Today Counts Show. We’ve got some fun news coming to you. I can’t talk to you about it yet, but it’s kind of a teaser. Even if I wanted to tell you about it, I can’t explain it very well, so we’ll just wait. But it has to do with the growth of the podcast and some of the changes we’re going to make to do even better.

If you’re joining us here for the first time, there’s typically four of us walking through the Book of Genesis, and we’re having a discussion about it just as we would if we were having coffee together—physically. But in this case, we’re virtually connected. We have so far walked through the creation account—the biblical creation account—and the fall of man. We’ve gone through the story of Noah. We’ve looked at really the second fall.

And so today, I have with me Gary—should be a household name by now—and Winston, and myself, Jim Piper. So I’m just going to jump right in, guys. Although we do want to congratulate Winston, is a dad again and is living with three women, so God bless him. What did we give you a name for? Was it the director of what?

Winston Harris: The lead director of the drama at the household family because we’ve got some dramatic girls.

Jim Piper: There you go. There you go. All right, that’s interesting because we’ve got some drama in Chapter 12 for sure. So this will be a fun chapter. If you’re a leader, you definitely want to tune in. Don’t shut us out because there’s some great lessons in here about so-called dilemmas. We might think we’re in a dilemma, and so we might make decisions of self-preservation, which is not always the best decision to make.

Genesis 12:1-3 and Jim’s Reflection

Anyway, Genesis 12:1 says, “The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.'”

Verse 3—I’m going to pause after verse 3. It says, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on the earth will be blessed through you.” Hey guys, I’m going to start it off and just throw something at you here in a minute. I’ve already shared this story probably three, four, five, or six times already from last night to some of my appointments today.

Yesterday or not yesterday, I’m sorry. Monday. Today is Wednesday, it really doesn’t matter I guess to those listening, but on Monday of this week, I was shocked. I had about a two-and-a-half hour block on my calendar of white space. And for a Type A, driven guy, I literally thought I must have deleted some appointment. So I got really nervous. And as I couldn’t find any evidence of that, I said, “Wow. What am I going to do with these two and a half hours?”

So I came down to the studio where I’m sitting now—our podcast studio. I picked out two books that I have standing up here in the studio. What I do when I read books—if there’s certain books that just smack me upside the head—and of course I highlight through them like crazy and write notes. I always have. And I do that with my Bible as well. I stand them up. And when I stand them up in the studio, that means, “Hey dude, you’ve got to get back and look at this book again, because I’m not sure your thick skull has taken all of this in. You really need to learn from this.”

So I said, I think that’s what I’ll do with my two and a half hour space. I came down and I didn’t get through the second book. There were two books in particular, but the other book I began to read. And as I began to read, I had three thoughts. Three thoughts. Now, as a believer, as a Christian, when I have a thought, my worldview causes me to ask myself a question: “Is this a Jim thought or is this a God thought?”

Now, not all Jim thoughts are bad or evil, but I do know there’s a huge gap between a Jim good thought and a God thought. And so I had three thoughts, and I want to tell you what these thoughts were.

The reason why I’m throwing this out is because God is speaking to Abram and God is giving him a calling. So this is what I’m going to throw out at you guys. But I’m going to finish my story here, then I’m going to throw it out at you.

How Did Abram Know it Was God?

So the first question I had when I read this is, how did Abram know it was God? That’s the first question. Was this an Abram thought that he later concluded was a God thought? Was this an audible voice that came to him? Did an angel come to him? What happened there?

So anyway, I’m reading these books, and I get these three distinct thoughts. The first thought was, “You are thinking too small.” The second thought was, “You are praying too small.” And the third thought was, “You are doing too much.” Which seemed to not fit the other two thoughts.

So what I decided to do was—I didn’t know what to do with those thoughts at the moment. My time had elapsed and I had to get back to my hurry and scurrying of life. But I said, “If I remember these thoughts in the morning, I’m going to believe that they’re God thoughts. And because they’re God thoughts, I’ve got some work to do to try to understand what they are.”

And so I did. I did remember those three—obviously. When I thought about “You’re thinking too small,” I thought, “Well, what came after that thought was ‘You’re praying too small.'” So I kind of dovetailed thinking too small into the praying too small. Meaning, if I’m thinking too small, then I’m obviously going to be praying too small. I began to reflect on my prayers lately. And
I thought, you know what? I was convicted because my prayers have been prayers of scarcity.

They’ve been prayers of defense. They’ve been prayers of fear. They have been prayers like, “Please protect my family. Please…” They were paranoid prayers, if you will. I mean, I’m being harsh about those prayers now. But when I prayed them, I thought they were good prayers. I thought they were innocent prayers. I thought they were recognizing that we need God over them. But as I began thinking more about them, I said, “Wait a second. What if I would have prayed prayers like, ‘God, I pray your hand would be upon my family. I pray that you would lead us and that you would guide us and that you would give us the wisdom.'”

And I began to realize—oh yeah, that would cover protection. But I zoomed in at protection, which was small, instead of praying big. So that’s the conclusion that I’m at so far.
Well, what’s the correlation of “I’m doing too much”? Well, then I thought, oh, that’s the reason why I was thinking too small and praying too small. I got caught in the tyranny of the urgent in the first quarter of this year. And when you get caught in the hurry and scurry—the busy—you do tend to get small.

And so I share that because when I was reading this and getting prepared to talk with you guys about it, I was then wondering, “Well, I wonder how different was this?” I kind of want Abram’s experience to be a lot different, but I kind of wonder, how did he— what do you guys think? How did Abram hear? It says, “The Lord had said to Abram.” So what are your thoughts?

Winston’s Take on Direction vs. Destination

Winston Harris: I think, personally, obviously, the Old Testament and our modern day are drastically different experiences about how humanity engages with God. And so was there potential for this to be a verbal, audible voice? Yeah, I think that is a possibility even then. So right to your point—how does he know this is Yahweh God versus the gods of other nations, right?

Still getting back to the heart of what I think you’re really asking, which is—you don’t really know. Knowing doesn’t precede faith. You ultimately have to trust that this is something beyond yourself that has your best interest in mind, and you’re going to move on this promise. You’re going to move on this unction. For some, they might call it a feeling. For some, they might call it a desire. But this prompting to move in a direction.

I think you kind of see that in these few verses here. I don’t know if you already read it: “To the land I will show you” is the phrase. And so he doesn’t know the destination. Abram doesn’t know the destination, but he’s being led in a direction. I just think that that’s such a powerful concept. So often, myself included, we’re married to a destination. We’re fighting for a destination. We’re looking for a pin to be dropped in a certain area versus being okay with being moved in a direction—in a broad movement.

So often we won’t move until we feel like we have a destination to go towards—a GPS pin drop, if you will. But it seems like God is into direction. God is into movement. And as you go, things get revealed. As you go, you get more insight about the character of God. Is this the one that is actually talking to me? As we’re moving, we’re starting to see confirmation, if you will, of the voice that we’re perceivably following.

I think to kind of answer your question: He’s moving in faith. He’s moving in the direction that he believes he should go. And as he’s going, we’re going to see if this promise is fulfilled. We’re going to see if he’s actually hearing from the God that he believes he’s hearing from.

So for me, my takeaway is direction over destination. I think I’ve heard it said—51%. If you’re waiting until you know it’s 100% God, you’re probably too late. Kind of going back to that “thinking small, praying small.” It’s this faith muscle that we’re building where, man, I believe, I have faith this—I’m hearing from God, and so I’m going to move, not really knowing, not knowing the land that I’m going to, and trusting that as I go, it will be revealed.

Gary’s Journey and Ambiguity

Gary Harpst: Jim, I don’t think you could have had an intro—I mean, your explanation setting this up is exactly where I live. If I think over my journey with the Lord—and I’m approaching 50 years now—there’s a point where you decide: is there a God or isn’t there? Then there’s a point where you grow to believe that Christ is who He says He is and He’s taken away my sin and given me eternal life. Those are things that are set with me. You can’t take them away from me. They’re set.

Then you grow to the point where you want to do what God is calling you to do. And I mean, there’s a point maybe prior to that where you have an idea what God’s calling you to do and you don’t want to do it. I’m at a stage where—I hope I’m honest in saying this—I genuinely believe I’ll do what God wants me to do, but I’m often not sure what it is that He wants me to do.

Winston, you’re speaking exactly about that. A couple of things go through my mind as I process this sort of ambiguity. Like, was this thought Yours, God, or mine? just like you said this morning.

There’s a passage in Colossians where God says—it’s Paul praying for people—and he says, “Increase my knowledge of Your will.” That’s the prayer request. Colossians 1:9 or something like that: “Increase my knowledge of Your will,” and then it says, “through wisdom and spiritual understanding.” I don’t want wisdom. I want Him to write it down, send me a text, send me an email—don’t make it vague like “wisdom.”

But the analogy I think of is my children. I don’t want my children to grow up and ask me to do every blooming little thing: “Should I go left or should I go right?” I want them to grow up and make decisions. Sure, I like it when they ask for guidance, and I’ll try to give them principles, but not make the decision for them.

We have in the Old Testament cases like this where God built a whole nation, and He was explicit: “Abraham, go do this.” He didn’t say where, but He said directionally, “Go.” And so much was built on that obedience. But there’s a lot of times where I have to just live in the wisdom I have and trust—back to your point, Winston—trust God that He has given me enough wisdom for the day.

Here I am in my 70s, Jim, and I think you frame the grittiness of a relationship with God. You have this “tell me everything” mindset, which means I’m childlike, versus “grow up and live with principles and get on with your life as I made you to.” So it’s not an answer—it’s just a reality of God is unknowable. I mean, all we have is Jesus—not all, but I mean Jesus is the exact image of the unseen God.

I just appreciate the framing of this. In verse four it says, “Abraham went forth as the Lord had spoken.” One thing I find is I often concentrate on what God hasn’t told me instead of acting on what He has. Why do I expect Him to tell me more when I haven’t followed what it is He’s already told me? Those are a few thoughts here.

The Three Lanes of Thinking and Calling

Jim Piper: Yeah, I like that framework that you were describing about adulthood, because if I were to add another lane, there’d be three lanes of my thinking. There is a thinking that is dark and gross and wrong, so those stick out. But then there are the thoughts that you get with a pure heart, with experience, with wisdom, that you really have no reason to question as you continue to grow. Therefore, there are things that you know how to do—God gave you that—and you don’t need some kind of angelic experience to continue on. You’re simply stewarding what God has given you.

But then there are those thoughts that you get that kind of stop you in your place, and you go—like I had on Monday. None of those three thoughts that I shared were in the book, but they came as a result of the book. I can’t even remember what I read that spurred that on. When you get to that third statement that I made, that third thought that I had was, “You’re doing too much.”

That one resonated with me really quick because my natural wiring is a catalyst. Gallup calls it an activator. My whole life I’ve naturally had a knack at starting things and fixing things. But one has to have wisdom in tempering that, because you never finish anything if you don’t have the discipline to reduce the number of projects that you’re working on at one time.

So that one felt like a spanking pretty quick, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it had to do with the other two, because the other two seemed to contradict it. In my personality, big means more—it doesn’t mean more. So I had to— as you would often say, Gary—I had to reverse engineer. Oh, well, that’s the problem. Because these thoughts are about big; they’re not about more. They’re about big, and what’s in my way is more. I’ve got more in my way of big.

So my empathy went to the business person, the business leader, the ministry leader, the organizational leader who maybe has gotten caught in the trap that I did—and probably would still do to this day without reminders like I had on Monday. If I compartmentalize my work with my faith, I’m really not going to get the benefit out of my relationship with my Creator and my Redeemer. But if I continually seek wisdom, there’s a lot of principles and a lot of platitudes that are all really good, but one still needs the lower elevation wisdom to know how to apply it in various contexts.

Anyway, I think we all agree and I think the listener would agree that these first three verses, they’re pretty powerful. They should wake us up. And you know what we really didn’t talk about yet—but we will—is these aren’t just thoughts. This appears to be a calling. We use the term “calling,” and this would be a good example of calling.

Winston Harris: I don’t want us to miss this though.

Jim Piper: Yeah, go ahead.

Winston Harris: So God calls Abram to leave his country, his family, his father’s house, to go into a land that he doesn’t know, that He will show him. If we kind of back up a little bit to the end of chapter 11, Abram’s father was taking all of them to the land of Canaan, but it says that he ended up stopping in Haran and settled there. So he stayed in a place that he wasn’t supposed to be. He stopped and actually passed away in that place. That was the place where Abram got this calling. And now God is telling him to move.

Backing out and zooming out, it almost seems like God is trying to shake Abram out of the familiarity that he found himself in—his family, this place that his father ended up settling. Just kind of, man, you know, we’re supposed to keep going. We’re supposed to make it where we were headed. But for some reason, my father just stayed here. And now I’m here where my father was, and God is saying, “Hey, there’s more. Let’s keep moving. Let’s move forward.”

And I kind of play with this idea of the unknown. God is calling Abram into the unknown. And I think the unknown frees us from the familiar—the challenge, the call to go outside of our comfort zones, if you will. Especially when it comes to family, I think that’s an interesting tension for a lot of people. I have conversations with people, even in their faith walks, and a lot of their faith walks are predicated on generational perspectives of faith—for better or for worse.

I find people who are following their parents’ God, but they’ve not made God personal to them. It’s not their God. It’s, “Oh yeah, I go to church because my mom goes to church,” or, “I go to church because my dad goes to church,” or, “I don’t have a faith walk because my family didn’t have a faith walk.” And in this place of familiarity, I’m only really operating in what I’ve always known. And God seems to function in this place of calling us out of the places that we settle, out of the places that are familiar or comfortable to us.

To try to tie that back to what you’re talking about, Jim, where I’m doing too much and my prayers are small, but I’m comfortable in that. I’m comfortable in the chaos. I’m comfortable in spreading myself thin. I am comfortable in activity that’s not really achieving anything. And if I really want to do something meaningful and effective and impactful, it’s going to require me to get uncomfortable in the big picture—uncomfortable praying prayers I’ve never prayed before, uncomfortable slowing down enough to focus on the thing that God is calling me to.
So I think that place of familiarity for Abram is a real tension that is a part of this call. God is calling him out of something that his family had settled in.

Gary Harpst: Yeah, I think what you said, Winston, it ties to what you said, Jim, at the beginning about the relationship between the first two points and the third. The more we are doing too much, the more our concept of what can be done is an extension of us—as opposed to, “Okay, I can get a 10% increase because I can work 10% harder.” But if you go tenfold, or a hundredfold, or a thousandfold, there’s no way—you can’t do it.

And I’m putting together both of you guys’ ideas, and I’m convicted when you say that, Jim—thinking too small. I pray, I want to pray things that I can see how to get there with better strategy or better thinking or more work. And I’m not saying God doesn’t use wisdom, but the breakthroughs are–

Jim Piper: Well, let’s talk about money for a second, because money is how we live. It’s how we exchange goods and services. Right before there was money, you still had money—it just was done in trade. I learned a long time ago that in some ways, it takes just as much work to acquire a $500 customer as it does a $50,000 customer. And I mean that—it literally takes just as much work. So why would one spend so much time trying to get that lower-shelf customer? Because of confidence, because of things that we think about.

And to what Winston was saying—and he already knows this because he has the book in his library now—but I mentioned this to Winston a year or two ago. It was a book that had an impact on me. Robert Clinton is the author. The name of the book is The Making of a Leader. It’s not an easy read. It’s not academic, but it’s just not an easy read because he has a lot of research in it.
But if I were to describe the theme of it, one of the things that the author taught is that most leaders plateau. I don’t remember what percentage was attached to the word “most,” but it was clearly most leaders plateau. Some plateau in their 20s, some their 30s, some their 40s, some their 60s, some their 70s. And there’s a slight few that never plateau—they always grow.

The rest of the book identifies the obstacles, or what seems to be the cause of leaders plateauing. And interestingly enough, what Winston was talking about—pointing out Abraham leaving the familiar—that is one of the items that is listed. And it’s actually part of my story, and that’s why I shared the book with Winston some years ago. I was in a very comfortable place, and I wanted to do a certain thing. When I read the book, I realized that– I don’t want to take this whole podcast into my story, but the point is—I realized that in my case, region was a problem. It was too easy, and I needed to move on.

Now, there’s a difference between someone taking this call and moving to an unknown place and somebody who is running from something. When somebody’s running from something—wherever you are, or wherever you go—there you are, right? That’s a different thing. That’s not what’s happening here in Abram’s calling. God is literally, as you were describing, Winston—and Gary and I, more advanced in years—I don’t know if Gary would agree with this, but when I sit and examine myself (because we’re about to see some things that Abram compromised in).

I love the Bible because it shows us the heroic side, and it shows the cowardly side. I still struggle with fear, but not the same fear that I had when I was younger. And I don’t know how to describe that yet. But there are some things that, when I was younger, would scare me to death, which probably had to do with a fear of failure maybe or in that realm. And now, I still struggle with fear, but it’s not that. It’s something else. So it’s interesting how this goes.
So let’s keep going and see where this story takes us.

Genesis 12:4-9: Abram’s Journey and Altars

Jim Piper: We left off in verse three, right? So verse four says, “So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him.” Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot—and remember, Lot lost his father early, right? I think that was the case. He died young—and all his wealth. So that’s why Lot was with Abram.

“And all his wealth, his livestock, and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran, and headed for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in Canaan, Abram traveled through the land as far as Shechem. There he set up camp beside the oak of Moreh. At that time, the area was inhabited by Canaanites.”

Verse seven: “Then the Lord appeared to Abram.” So now we get a little more clarity here: “I will give this land to your descendants.” And Abram built an altar there. Now, whenever I read the word “altar,” I think it was Gary who educated us about uncut stones. So you can bring that up again if you wish. And Abram built an altar there and dedicated it to the Lord, who had appeared to him. After that, Abram traveled south and set up camp in the hill country, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built another altar and dedicated it to the Lord, and he worshiped the Lord. Then Abram continued traveling south by stages toward the Negev.

Any thoughts on this journey here?

Abram’s Belief and Relationship with God

Gary Harpst: Well, one thing that sticks out to me, which started in verse four, is: What is the miracle that took place inside of Abraham where he believed God so deeply? He didn’t live in a culture—this is kind of near the land of Errs, in the Tower of Babel region—and the people around him were not faithful for the most part. And his father didn’t go on farther.

Where did this come from in Abraham? If you think about the primary trait, it says later God said he believed God and it was counted as righteousness. In verse four, he went forth as the Lord had spoken. And Winston, as you pointed out, we can’t process what that really meant. He was leaving his family. He was leaving his familiarity—everything you said earlier. And I just find myself thinking, Abraham had this relationship with God. He’s building altars. It’s just a miracle that he believed against all common sense.

Later on, when you remember when he called– Well, it’s later on, he called him to sacrifice his son, and it said the next morning he got up early and strapped and went. I would have stalled. I would have thought of every which way to drag that out, and it said the next morning. So anyway, you just see here his obedience, and God clearly—what does it say in Hebrews? Without faith it’s impossible to please God. I just asked myself this morning, do I believe you, God? That’s the most fundamental question.

Winston Harris: Something you said, Gary, about this relationship that Abram obviously has with God—to be worshiping Him on this journey and to have the faith to respond to this call—the phrase that kind of comes to my mind, I’m just thinking about Abram once again in this place of familiarity, settled or settling for all that’s around him and all that his family has done up until this point. And it’s almost like he got dissatisfied with settling. He got dissatisfied with what was.

He’s had this desire to believe. He had this desire for something different, for something to change. And it was almost like not only was God calling on Abram to move, but God was almost calling something out of Abram. In his generation, for some reason, Abram was the one that God knew was willing to respond. And so God pulls on this thread—that there is this dissatisfaction. I might be reading a little bit too much into this, but what was the catalyst for Abram to even respond or acknowledge?

I just have to believe that because Abram had a desire to worship God, he must have had a desire on the flip side to not want what was. He wanted something more. And not only was it to maybe change direction or change the scenery of the place that he was, but it was, “Man, I love God. I love God so much I’m willing to leave everything I know.”

Gary Harpst: I love the synergy of these conversations because what you said about pulling something out of him— Jim, you said something about when you pray for your family and we have these small prayers, I think every night I pray with my wife and at dinner I say, “Just protect our family.”

And what went through my mind when you said that and based on what you said about Abraham is what I should be praying is not, “Protect my children,” but “God, make my children warriors that knock down the world around them. Protect Satan from my kids. Make them warriors,” instead of a defensive stand back. The Spirit of God is in these people—in us—and I’m with you, Jim. You’ve inspired me here today.

Jim Piper: Well, anything that’s worth repeating is incarnate, right? nd so I got to live it a few days before sharing it with you guys, and I’m living it right now. I’m convicted to the heart. I’m joining in what you guys are saying. You made me think of something. I didn’t think about it until I listened to both of you. I think if you were to look at Abram’s giftedness—now we’re cheating because we’re going out into the future here—but I think he was a strategic man.

And most people filled with—let’s just call it a gift of strategy—you could say faith, that’s a Bible word, but I would call faith a fuel gift. Like gasoline fuel. And then it fuels competencies like strategy. I don’t know too many people who are really good at strategy that don’t have a well of faith. Because faith is kind of what sets that course.

But I think about what we’re about to read that he did here in a second, which most sermons will criticize Abram—and maybe we will too—but another side of this is that all along the journey, he knew about what was coming. Whether they were on higher ground and could see, or whether they just had knowledge of the region, or whether there were couriers and they got educated in it—I don’t really know where his knowledge came from about what he was about to experience. But he created a strategy to get through that.

Then when you think later on in the story—which we’re not going to get to in this episode—but Lot gets himself in trouble, and Abram is swift and strategic and successful. And then we have the strange encounter after that with Melchizedek and then the way he dealt with that. And the more you start thinking about that, I think it’s interesting what Winston said. Because most—not all the time—but if God has placed a gift in somebody, He’s going to call the gift out and be used by that. I just thought that was interesting.

Gary, I know you’ve already taught on this, but go over the altar thing again about uncut stones. We know that what Abraham was building here was literally stacking stones.

Gary Harpst: Somebody pointed this out to me one time—that one time God gave instructions, explicitly says, “When you make an altar, do it with uncut stones.” And the contrast was to the language in the Tower of Babel, which we’ve already covered. There’s this sort of sequence in which that Tower of Babel story is described. It actually highlights the characteristic of the tower. It doesn’t say, “Come, let us build a tower to heaven.” Itays, “Let us make bricks and mortar,” or more in the Hebrew, and then build the tower.

And it’s sort of reversed. What it’s doing is highlighting the fact—what’s the difference between bricks? It’s actually emphasizing the bricks. Bricks are sort of—anywhere there’s furnace and mortar, what were the Hebrews doing in Egypt? They were making bricks. And so bricks are sort of the opposite of uncut stones. They’re man-made. They’re in a fixed shape and always the same, and they’re stuck together by stuff around them.

So whenever that teaching came to me, I thought, what a contrast. God gives us each different fingerprints. Husband and wife are different. He puts them together. And the altar is holy and it’s made up of unlike stones. No two stones are the same. And it’s the contrast between man’s ways—tyranny, the evil one’s ways—controlling, versus God’s ways, which are life. I think it’s such a powerful thing. And here he is building altars—and he doesn’t have bricks out there.

Jim Piper: I think Peter uses the term that we are a house of stones being built. When you were teaching that, I immediately thought about what you said earlier—the uniqueness and individuality, yet one—versus the manufacturing approach where everything is the same and therefore inferior just because of that. There is such a thing as best practices, but it does cause me to realize that a lot of so-called best practices in business have a shelf life. Because somebody else figures out something better as time goes on.

I’ve never been an opponent of best practices, but I’ve always been a bit suspicious. And that might be my entrepreneurial nature. When you mentioned that before, I just thought it was worth mentioning again. I think that’s a powerful thing. All right, so anything else there before we go to the drama of this? Sets us up—we’re in verse 10 in the NGV, right? That’s where they’re at, or at least toward that area.

The Famine and Abram’s Plan

It says, “At that time a severe famine struck the land of Canaan, forcing Abram to go down to Egypt, where he lived as a foreigner. As he was approaching the border of Egypt, Abram said to his wife Sarai, ‘Look, you are a very beautiful woman.'” She said, “Thank you.” I’m sure the scripture doesn’t say that, but “When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife. Let’s kill him, then we can have her.'”

He didn’t just think of that when they were traveling—he’s thinking about how he’s going to enter this area. After all, it’s tough times, it’s a famine. That’s very much like war, right? It’s survival of the fittest, as Darwin would say. “Let’s kill him, then we can have her.”

Verse 13 says, “So please tell them you are my sister. Then they will spare my life and treat me well because of their interest in you.” Sure enough, when Abram arrived in Egypt, everyone noticed Sarai’s beauty. When the palace officials saw her, they sang her praises to Pharaoh, their king, and Sarai was taken into his palace. Then Pharaoh gave Abram many gifts because of her—sheep, goats, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.”

I want to stop there. We know it doesn’t end there, but let’s just talk about what seems to be a really good plan. What are you guys thinking here?

Gary Harpst: It might work for Abraham, but I don’t know about Sarai.

Jim Piper: Yeah, that’s a good—there we go again, right? So as a strategy guy, he’s getting rich again, right? He’s alive, he’s bartering. And of course, we know that Abram and Sarai had the same father but different mothers. I don’t know what to call that. Is that a truth that he told? It was a truth absent of the whole truth. “Oh, she’s my sister who happens to also be my wife.” That’s the part that he left out. But it was a very tactical move. Looking back at it, not as strategic as he thought. But whenever we do make tactical moves, we tend to think that they’re strategic, don’t we?

I don’t know how many tactical moves are part of a strategy. I guess it depends upon how big the strategy is and how long the strategy takes to be fulfilled. But inside that trail of strategy, there are many tactical moves of dealing with obstacles and the various things you encounter along the way.

So it sounds like his strategy was to avoid the famine, so he goes down to Egypt, and he has an obstacle there. His obstacle was Sarai’s beauty, which he turned into an asset. But all very tactical.

Winston Harris: I think the juxtaposition is—faith enough to believe God to move, but doesn’t have faith enough to tell the truth about how it will play out if he doesn’t take matters into his own hands and use deception as a strategy or as a tactic. I think that’s the paradox of what we all live in, right? But especially those of us who are followers of Jesus. We have faith enough to follow Jesus until we’re confronted with a challenge. Then, what are we going to do? Are we going to revert back to our own efforts, our own thought processes, or are we going to press forward and believe that God’s way is better?

I also think it’s interesting that God will give enough direction sometimes to get you moving, but sometimes He’ll remain quiet. He’s kind of like, “Okay, let’s see what Abram does here.” Because God could have easily given him a specific direction as he’s confronted with this challenge, but God doesn’t. He lets Abram make a decision. This is the tension of our faith, right?

Jim Piper: He had a thought. I wonder if he asked. I wonder, is this an Abraham thought? Is this an Abram thought? Or is this a God thought?

Gary Harpst: Well, I agree with you, Winston. This inconsistency—it calls me short when I think, “Okay, I believe You can save me, but I don’t believe You can handle this thing over here.” My own inconsistency.

Winston Harris: To kind of go back to the initial calling, there had to be some level of attraction to the call, right? Something about what God was saying, Abram had to think was attractive to actually move. This wasn’t blind obedience. Yes, but also he’s moving into some pretty drastic environments, into some pretty intense spaces. So what would have caused him to move? Something that was persuasive enough to get him to move.

But now, in his movement, he seems to be in the momentum of his decision. Now he’s not even considering—to your point, Jim—”Should I invite God into this moment to ask again, ‘Hey, I need some direction here?'” He’s kind of in this momentum, and he’s like, “No, I got this. Let me try this.” It definitely parallels our lives. We can find ourselves in this narrative.

Gary Harpst: Jim, there’s one other thing in here—just maybe a message to your listeners. The Bible is so rich with what you might call hidden meaning, things you don’t see the first time or the second or the third or the tenth. But in verse 10, there’s a subtle little thing that’s completely off-topic. It says, “There was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt.”

He just got done—or recently had—God tell him to go into the land: “I’m giving it to you. It’s going to be a great place, and I’m going to fulfill all these promises.” And then, in the middle of that land, he can’t eat. I think about how many times in my life God leads me in some direction, and then some hiccup comes along, and I think, “Did You change Your mind, God?” I don’t make the connection.

Here, Abram—it says out of wisdom—he had to go and get food. He had to leave the place that God told him to go to. It seemed like a contradiction. All the time, I confuse it. I think, “Okay, well, You made it hard, so I must have misunderstood You.”

Jim Piper: Actually, I think it connects really well. Listening to you, Gary, made me think—the silence. We all go through periods. So the businessperson that I’m coaching, when I suggest, “Have you invited God into your business?”—seeking guidance from Him—pragmatically, almost like a genie, they’ll rub the lamp and won’t get anything out of it right away. So they toss the idea pretty quick.

But I think for all of us, we would say there have been times in our lives it seems like God is silent. The silence for Abram probably started a lot sooner than when he got to Egypt, thinking about the next obstacle of Sarai. If you’re on a journey to go to the Promised Land and you go through a severe famine—that had to be confusing.

Gary Harpst: It has to be.

Jim Piper: So the silence started there. Then, out of desperation or strategy, you use your wisdom, you move forward. Then there’s another obstacle, and another obstacle. There’s a lot of messages in here. How many times, particularly in my youth, did I tell a half-truth in business because I was under pressure and didn’t have enough fortitude to look my boss or customer in the eye and just speak the truth?

But I had too much insecurity. Insecurity being the root of all conflict. But insecurity starts with me. If I’m not secure in who I am, that’s going to leak out into everything I do. If I can’t honestly say, “I took the shot and I missed it,” and live with that, I’m going to create a new narrative that is a lie. And if I say it long enough, I’m actually going to believe it. And then, of course, narcissism and all kinds of other things can develop when we go down those trails.

In my book Story, I actually tell of a time—it was embarrassing to write—but I thought, you know, I’m going to probably let a lot of people down by telling this story. A lot of people hold me too high. But when I was 20 years old, I had a very unique thing happen in my life. To make a long story short, I had an offer to get in the management training program at Bank of America. I was offered a job at GTE, General Telephone, which everybody knew in that day—at that time with that company—you were set for life once you joined. Plus, as a young man, I really wanted to climb telephone poles for whatever reason.

The bank sounded good because I lived in the desert, and working in the air conditioning sounded really good. But I also already had a good job while I was still in college. I was working for a circulation manager for a newspaper—it sounds greater than it was—but I didn’t want to give any of those up.

So what I did is I accepted the offer with the bank. I called the telephone company and told them I had been in an automobile accident. They had a rule where you had to be an operator for a year, and then you could choose which field to go into.

So I told the recruiter, “I want to come work for GTE, but I was in a car accident and I broke my leg,” which was an absolute lie. She said, “That’s okay, you can come to work with a cast because operators don’t use their legs.” Then I said without hesitation, “Well, I actually broke an arm too.” You could tell at that moment I was dealing with a more seasoned individual. It wasn’t too hard to see through that. She said, “When you’re ready to come to work, just give us a call.”

Anyway, I kind of played both sides with my boss too to see if I could get a raise big enough— No integrity. I don’t think I meant harm, but I just didn’t have enough self-respect in myself. I just couldn’t make the call. Long story short, I did go through the bank. I was convicted later and called that lady back at the telephone company. She giggled and was gracious. She said, “Well, you had me for a minute. Thanks for the call.”

When we’re under pressure—or maybe not even under pressure, when we’re caught by greed, which would have been my case there—filled with insecurity, we do dumb things.

Now some have argued—before I read the conclusion and we discuss it, because there’s some fun stuff to talk about here too—some have suggested that God was okay with this because He wanted to reveal His power. But to Winston’s point, that is really inconsistent with—well, why couldn’t he trust God to deliver him from Pharaoh versus come up with his own plan that God was going to have to deliver him from anyway?

So in other words, if they were going to try to kill Abram to get to Sarai, he didn’t have faith for that. He had more faith in his strategy, but he didn’t really think about the out plan. He couldn’t have thought about the out plan. I mean, once she’s in the palace, what are you going to do? Sneak her out? How are you going to get her out? Anyway, so let’s read the conclusion and see what we have to say.

Verse 17. So again, just to remind everybody, at this point Sarai is now part of the festivities in the palace with Pharaoh. And to Gary’s point, only God knows what happened to Sarai. The Bible doesn’t really tell us. I don’t think you bring in a beautiful woman when you are the Pharaoh and just put her on a shelf.

Gary Harpst: Isn’t there another place in Scripture where this story is described, Winston, and it talks about protecting her? Am I dreaming this up?

Jim Piper: No, you’re not. You’re not. But what I’m concerned about—where I’m probably most disappointed—we had a men’s group last night where I gave a real quick discussion about a very provocative verse in Peter. Yeah, where it tells married men to be gentle with their wives so that their prayers will not be hindered. Where I’m most disappointed in my brother Abram—as if I have any place to stand—is what did he think would happen?

Gary Harpst: Yeah, right.

Jim Piper: So that’s kind of where I’m coming from. I’m going, “Well, sorry hun, but it’s survival. I would like to trade places with you—no, liar—because you could have.”

The Consequences and Pharaoh’s Response

Anyway, Verse 17: “But the Lord sent terrible plagues upon Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.” So Pharaoh summoned Abram and accused him sharply, “What have you done to me?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?”

So how did he find out about that? Well, probably all the weird things that happened. And then, you know, gave Sarai the third degree, “Well, I am his sister, but I’m also his wife.” “Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ and allow me to take her as my wife?” So now she’s married to two men. “Now then, here is your wife. Take her and get out of here.”

And then it all ends with this. Verse 20: “Pharaoh ordered some of his men to escort them, and he sent Abram out of the country along with his wife and all his possessions.”
Gary Harpst: Just a side note: it’s implied here—in that culture at least—there was still a respect for a man’s wife. I mean, we live in a culture where that’s maybe not so much true.

Winston Harris: What I come back to—I’m coming back to the calling. I’m rereading what God is saying He’s going to make Abram. He says, “I will make you a great nation. I will make your name great.” And if my memory serves me correctly—Jim, maybe you remember this from Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby—Abram’s going to be the father of many nations, but he’s currently not the father of many nations. His character, his personhood, what it will require for him to be the father of many nations is not yet so. And through these experiences, as God is walking him through this journey—not the destination, but the direction—God is making him into what He needs him to be.

And so we’re seeing these character flaws, and we’re seeing these opportunities for Abram to mature into the man he’s going to need to be for God to achieve His purpose. So that’s kind of where my mind is going. This is a poor decision. God is using his decision as development.

Gary Harpst: That’s encouraging.

Jim Piper: I think that’s true. I mean, I think that’s true. That’s what God does. He redeems—not just us—but sometimes– You can take this too far, I think, but sometimes our mistakes. Going back to the argument that some make—where I think it does have some credence—is that regardless of what Abram’s decision was heading into Egypt, God was going to show Himself. He was either going to protect Abram and his tribe. I don’t think it’s too much of our imagination to say this probably is not how God drew it up, right?

Gary Harpst: No.

Jim Piper: He’s not going to cough up His daughter like that. If we personalize it and say Sarai first belonged to God before she belonged to Abram, right? He’s not going to drop a plan like that. I think Abram must have been embarrassed.

Gary Harpst: There’s another very subtle thing here: the Lord struck Pharaoh. And you think, well, why didn’t He strike Abram? He’s the one who caused all this. And there’s an aspect of the purity of God’s character—that a man having another man’s wife is wrong in His sight whether you know it or not. And He caused a plague—I assume part of the reason was to keep Pharaoh from doing this. So in a way, He protected Pharaoh.

There are a lot of different ways He could have told him, but God’s character is mysterious. It’s beyond our understanding of justice. We like to mitigate what’s right or wrong based on our motives or “I didn’t understand” or whatever. You stand in front of a train—whether you’re ignorant or not—the same result’s going to happen. And God’s character is immutable. It can’t be violated. And it’s why we need a Savior. Because innocence is no excuse. I mean, wow.

Jim Piper: I think that’s a great point. I mean, in a sense, Pharaoh didn’t do anything wrong knowingly and culturally, yet he did do something wrong in the gospel that is beginning to be revealed. And the gospel includes grace. It’s meaningless without grace. And so that is not a stretch at all.

Gary Harpst: It shows us the depth of our need for a Savior, because whether we even understand our sin or not—it doesn’t matter. It’s sin.

Jim Piper: What a great chapter.

Gary Harpst: It is, it’s rich.

Jim Piper: Any other thoughts?

Gary Harpst: This challenges me on some things I’m not believing big enough and not trusting God and questioning the missteps.

Jim Piper: And I think a takeaway that we can all have, for everyone listening, is: God is still speaking today. Maybe not the way He spoke to Abram, but He still is speaking today. He’s speaking through His Word, He’s speaking through our conscience, He’s speaking through others, He’s speaking through circumstances.

And asking that question—again, a “Jim thought” is not always a wrong thought—but there’s a big difference between a Jim thought and a God thought. And boy, if you can hear some God thoughts and embrace them– I mean, I’m obviously having a great week this week, because I’m believing that God tapped me on the shoulder for those two and a half hours of white space that I wasn’t expecting on my calendar.

Podcast News

Gary Harpst: Jim, you said there was some good news about the podcast. You were going to talk about that or not?

Jim Piper: Yeah, we’re going to unveil it in time, but I can’t articulate it well enough because—like Abram—we have a developing strategy. If I were to talk about it now, it’d be tactical and I’d make a mess. But I’ll say this: we so appreciate the listeners of the Genesis Project as well as our leadership podcast.

We do think we’re going to concentrate on continuing this style of podcast beyond the Genesis Project. But to do that, we’re going to change some things up. That’s the part that I don’t know when and I don’t know how. But we’re having a great time, we’re getting good responses. And then the leadership podcast as well will continue. So we’ve got some work to do there and some team development. We’ve got to think through stuff. But–

Gary Harpst: Pray for wisdom.

Jim Piper: Yeah, exactly.

Gary Harpst: And think bigger.

Jim Piper: And think bigger, man. Think bigger. Pray bigger.

Gary Harpst: And do less.

Jim Piper: Yeah, do less. Yeah, do more by doing less. Something like that.

Outro

Thank you for joining us here at The Today Counts Show. Be sure to like and subscribe on whatever platform you listen or watch so you don’t miss any content—and stay tuned for more coming soon.
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