God Renews His Promise (Genesis 13:14-18)

Does God forget His promises?

In the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, many of us are feeling isolated: we miss our church family, and we miss our extended family—our kids, parents, brothers and sisters whom we can’t see due to social distancing. We can start to feel alone and wonder if God is still there.

God has promised that He will always be with us (Matthew 28:20). That He has overcome the world (John 16:33), and He will answer our prayers (Mark 11:24). He has promised that He will provide for our needs (Matthew 6:25-33), and the one who perseveres through the end of this trial will be saved (Matt 24:13).

God has made us many promises in His Word. But sometimes, like during a time of tragedy or a global pandemic, we can become forgetful. We start to wonder if we are all alone and question if God is really there. Did He really mean those promises? Or did He forget His promises? It is in these times that we need to remind ourselves of God’s promises, or simply open His Word and allow Him to remind us of them.

In Genesis 13, Abram and his closest living relative, Lot, make the decision to go their separate ways. Yesterday, we noted that this was not a sinful decision, but merely a necessary fact of life. But that doesn’t make it any easier. Just like a parent is both joyful and mournful when they drop their child off at college, so Abram must have been feeling both joy and sorrow as he watched Lot move away. It is at this point in his life that God speaks to Abram and reminds him of God’s promise to him.

Please read Genesis 13:14-18.

There are two main aspects to this promise: land and children. You’ll remember that Abram has journeyed from his hometown as far as Egypt, but now has circled back “between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first” (13:3-4). He is in the heart of the Promised Land, so God tells him to look all around him—even go for a long walk, and everywhere that Abram sees will one day belong to his family.

Think about what this must have meant for Abram: he has just seen the closest thing to his only heir (Lot) move away because their herdsman didn’t have enough land to spread out. Now God is telling him that there will be plenty of land in the future. Not only that, but God reassures Abram that Lot will not be his heir, but he will have his own children—so many in fact that they will be uncountable!

During our times of deepest sorrow, God reminds us of His promises. The Word of God is true. The Word of God endures forever. Now matter what you may be going through today, open His Word and allow Him to remind you of His promises. He didn’t forget about them; we shouldn’t either.