Last week I claimed that God wants to work with us in solving life’s problems. The Lord still expects us to act, but not to act as though we were alone.
But what does that look like? Genesis actually shows us God modeling this collaborative behavior so that Abraham – and we – can start to picture it.
After God announces for the second time that Sarah will have the promised child, the Lord takes Abraham aside to discuss the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah – two nearby cities that are so evil that God is considering destroying them (Genesis 18:16-33).
God opens the discussion with subtlety. The Lord allows Abraham to overhear the divine rationale for including the human in this life and death decision. “Shall I keep back from Abraham what I’m about to do? Abraham is going to become a large and strong nation; all the nations of the world are going to find themselves blessed through him” (Genesis 18:17-18).
Notice how next the Lord addresses the need to do something about the misery begotten from the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, but then waits to hear Abraham’s opinion.
God’s initiative frees Abraham to respond with candor, “Are you serious? Are you planning on getting rid of the good people right along with the bad? What if there are fifty decent people left in the city?” (Genesis 18:23).
God agrees that Abraham has a point and grants that for fifty good folk the city could be saved. But Abraham wavers. What if there are only forty-five? The passage becomes almost humorous as Abraham and God go back and forth counting down until, for some reason, Abraham stops at ten.
Yes, it is like haggling in a bazaar, but in the process we see God demonstrating receptivity to Abraham’s arguments. The Lord values and even encourages Abraham to express his opinions.
In the end, God still razes the cities (Genesis 19) but saves Abraham’s nephew Lot.
This episode offers us a peek at God’s first real mentoring lesson for Abraham. As we’ll see, it takes more than a single tutorial for Abraham to learn how and for what things to trust the Lord. Collaboration isn’t natural for humans; we prefer to run the show ourselves.
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