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Code Name: Sarah


                When I came up with the blog name, Mission: Faithwalk, it was with strong connection to Mission: Impossible. At least, the connection seemed obvious to me. Hand and (latex) glove with espionage are things like codenames. It seemed a perfect way to bring in another idea that seemed obvious to me.

             The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;        I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Gen 12:1-3)

            When Abram decided to follow God's call, it was the duty of his wife to go with him. Every step of faith that he took, she also had to take and then she had to take her own as well. She had to leave her home and go somewhere she might not want to go, and live under conditions that she might not enjoy.  Once they arrived, might she not have said her equivalent of "It's too hot, to flat, too muggy, too buggy, too sandy and how am I supposed to access the Web?"  Every time either she or Abram failed, she paid the price and every promise God made to Abram, He made to Sarai.

            I don't believe that God intends to fulfill this precise promise in precisely the same way. He has promised to work all things together for good for me (Romans 8:28.) I am His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for me to do (Ephesians 2:10.) So even if the promise of blessing and being a blessing is not quite the same, it still exists.

            Knowing of God's promise didn't make Sarai's trip any easier. People probably thought Abram was crazy when he decided to pull up stakes and head "somewhere" and at best, that made her "the wife of that crazy guy."  She faced long, difficult journeys, wars, famines, suspicious and hostile neighbors,  intrigue and double-cross from friends and family members ( including her husband and a woman who might well have been the closest thing she had to a friend) and what was then the humiliation of infertility.  I don't know all the challenges I'll face.  I have a few ideas , but one of the things I have that she probably didn't is that I have an example. I have Sarai, whose name was changed to Sarah, who lived through what was probably a much tougher version of what I am facing.

        In Hannah Hurnard's Hinds Feet In High Places, Much Afraid was given companions for her journey that terrified her. By the time she reached her destination, she discovered that she could never had made it if other, less intimidating companions had been chosen. The idea is at least in part that God gives us the companions, living or allegorical, that we need for our journeys.  I am walking in the footsteps of a giant.

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