"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going." (Hebrews 11:8) So much praise is lavished on Abraham in Hebrews 11:8-19. This man's journey of faith is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest in the entirety of Scripture. The sacrifices he made... the obedience he showed in his life is inspiring to say the least.
However, to get to Hebrews 11...we have to go through Genesis 12. This is where we find Abraham in his premature days of faith. We see him trying to save his own skin by giving his wife to an Egyptian harem (Genesis 12:19). Not so much the hero of faith we find in Hebrews 11. We find Abraham laughing at the idea that he would have a son through his wife Sarah, even though God said it would come to pass (Genesis 17:17). Abraham, at times, was way off base! But these are the situations we need to see...because we can relate to failure.
Abraham failed. Abraham, at times, rushed ahead of God. Abraham made decisions that we would call unethical, and down-right dumb. Abraham (in some situations) wasn't faithful at all, but faithless. Yet, through his journey of failures, God helped him...God forgave him...and God produced a maturity of faith in this man that we long to imitate. His life was a process. It was a journey through heartaches, doubts, mistakes, and failures. Ours will be no different. We will fail, but that's part of the process of living this Christian life.
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