Abram, Sarai, and Lot all return to the land of Canaan and when Abram returns to his home base in Bethel, he calls on the Name of the Lord again. But what if he had done that before he went to Egypt? How might that have changed the story for the better and saved a whole lot of people a whole world of hurt—and especially Sarai and her maidservant Hagar.
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel. (Parents, all Scripture this week comes from the MTV, the Miss Tyler Version, which is the Christian Standard Bible modified a bit to make it easier for kids to understand the content and the context).
So, last week, God saved Abram’s wife Sarai! Abram had gotten her into deep, deep trouble because he was scared and he lied about who she was. God sent a whole bunch of trouble on Pharaoh, the man who had taken her as a wife, and he ended up giving her back to Abram. But this week, we are going to look at what happened next—which is going to show us what very important thing didn’t happen before she was taken—and how it teaches us to always be talking to God and especially when we are scared out of our minds. So, what did they do when Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, booted them out of his country?
Abram went north from Egypt up to the Negev—he, his wife, and all he had, and Lot with him. Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold. He went bit by bit from the Negev north to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly been, to the place where he had built the altar. And Abram called on the name of the Lord there. (Gen 13:1-4)
Wow, that’s a long trip all the way from Egypt to Bethel and the altar Abram built for God. If we go back to what Abram did before they got to Egypt, we see that although Abram built altars to the north and in the middle of the Land of Canaan, and called on the Name of the Lord at those altars in prayer and worship, when he was in the south he didn’t do any of that. No altar and no prayer when he got to the Negev, before he went to Egypt, and no altar and no prayer when he got back either. Why not? Abram went to the Negev, which is a desert but full of canyons and beautiful rock formations, and he didn’t build an altar and we don’t see him talking to God, and all of a sudden there is like a famine and we don’t see anything to suggest that he did anything to ask God about what they should do. Maybe he thought that God wasn’t a god of the desert. After all, there was nothing there to eat and there were dangerous animals that would have thought that his family and critters looked like something good to eat. People in the ancient world looked at seas and oceans and deserts all the same way—as scary places of chaos where nothing made sense and there was nothing but danger. Abram might have even believed that God couldn’t hear him in a place like that, and so when the famine came and there was nothing to eat, he might have thought he was on his own. It sounds weird to us but that is what people believed back then and it was going to take God a long time to convince them otherwise.
And we didn’t see Abram calling on the Name of the Lord in Egypt either, instead he plots and schemes and lies to try to save himself. When they got kicked out of Egypt, and went back through the Negev desert, he still didn’t build an altar or call on the Name of the Lord—even though he saw how God came through for him in Egypt by rescuing Sarai. In fact, Abram doesn’t seem to talk to God until he gets all the way back up north to Bethel and if you look at a map, that’s a long time to avoid praying to God. But, it is also kind of typical of what we do when we feel that God is out of reach or has forgotten about us or can’t help us. You do it and so do I sometimes, without even thinking about it, but this story of Abram and Sarai teaches us that we should always be talking to God and especially when we are scared and confused and think He can’t hear us. It’s crazy, right? Because you would think that when we are really scared, the first thing that would happen is that we would pray and call out to God, but instead, we get distracted and tend to forget about God entirely! Going to God right away and not as a last resort is something that we all have to learn to do, as crazy as that sounds.
So, let’s go back to when Abram came to the Negev desert (and I will link pictures in the transcript so you can see how beautiful it is) and we’re doing that so we can explore one of our “what if” stories. What would have happened if Abram had built an altar and prayed and worshiped when they came to the desert? Well, considering the fact that the first time Abram did this, the Lord actually appeared to him and promised him kids (remember that even though he and his wife are old, they have no kids and that means trouble back then), it obviously would have been a really good idea. So, here we go with “What if Abram had built an altar in the Negev when things started looking scary?”
Abram got concerned when the green scrub grasses, wild cucumbers, fig, olive and pomegranate trees became more and more scarce, giving way to a rough and barren desert landscape. Instead of the fertile lands his livestock had enjoyed on their journey so far, now they were staring into what appeared to be an endless wasteland. What was on the other side? Was there nothing except dirt, sand, rocks and canyons all the way to Egypt, which everyone knew lay to the south? As they pressed on, hoping to find fertile land again, they had to finally come to the conclusion that they were running out of food, and they were in big trouble. Should they head north again, into the Land of Canaan? Or should they press south toward Egypt, where food and grazing land was always plentiful? Abram looked at his household—his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and all of the male and female slaves he had bought for himself. It was hard to know what to do and he certainly had gone too far and the God who spoke to him in Bethel couldn’t possibly be here in such a barren place. But maybe he was wrong. He gathered up twelve big stones and made himself an altar and then called out to the God who had spoken to him in Haran and at Bethel.
“I do not know what to do! I have followed you faithfully, trusting that you would tell me if I was going the wrong way and now, I am in a barren land of famine, with no food and no water and nothing for my animals to graze on. I do not think we can afford to go back to look for food and I do not know how long of a trip it will be to Egypt and I am scared to go there because my wife Sarai, she is so beautiful—and when the Egyptians see her, they will kill me and take her! What will become of my household if that happens? My God, you have generously promised me many good things, too wonderful for me to even imagine, but I feel abandoned now. I am afraid that I went the wrong direction or wandered too far. I do not know if You can hear me here or if I made You so angry by bringing my nephew Lot that You are punishing me by leading me into the desert to die. But I am willing to do whatever You want! Should we press on to Egypt or should we turn to the east or the west or return to Canaan where You blessed me by appearing to me?”
If that had happened, what would God have done? God certainly is always pleased when we come to Him and talk to Him and are honest about what we are going through and how we feel about it. God already knew what Abram was thinking and I imagine that He kept hoping that Abram would finally be desperate enough to ask for blessings and guidance. Would God have remained silent, just to see what choices Abram would make? Or would He appear to Abram again and tell him to keep heading down to Egypt, and that He would protect him there and bless him? Or would He tell Abram to return to Canaan where there was food and good grazing land? We don’t know! And you know what? Unless we pray to God when we are in trouble or scared or confused, we will never know what He might have done either! What we do know is what happened when Abram didn’t build an altar in Negev and call on the Name of the Lord. Sarai got taken. I am betting that just about anything was better than that.
In fact, there are going to be a lot of bad consequences for a long time for their household—just because of what happened in Egypt. Twenty-five years of problems, actually. Some will happen right away, because Abram has so many critters right now that he won’t be able to stay in the same place as his nephew Lot and without Abram, Lot will make some terrible choices. Those choices will cause problems not only for Abram but for Lot’s entire family. And because Sarai was taken by Pharaoh, she was given a young girl as a slave who was named Hagar. And that is going to cause a lot of problems too—not only for Sarai and Abram but especially for Hagar. Not all decisions that we make without God will go so badly, but they can, which is why we should always go to God with our problems and our sadness and our confusion and especially when we are scared. God won’t always tell us exactly what we should do, but a lot of times He will and once we tell Him that we want Him to guide us to do what is wise, He really can find all sorts of ways to help us. We might still end up being up to our eyeballs in alligators, but at least we will understand that God hasn’t forgotten us because we keep reminding Him that we’re here by talking to Him all the time and we can know that He is always listening. God doesn’t forget about us, but when we aren’t talking to Him, we tend to forget about Him and everything gets a whole lot worse than it needs to be. We might even miss what He does end up saying to us because we aren’t paying attention. I’ve sure done that before.
When we are scared or confused, like Abram was, it is very easy to forget God’s promises and all the things He has done to protect and bless us in the past. Not only does prayer tell God that we want His help and are listening and that we want to do things His way and know what He is thinking, but it also reminds us that He is very real, and that we aren’t alone. And did you know that God is so faithful and trustworthy that we can even complain when we think He is ignoring us when we have troubles? Of course, we can! Anyone who has read the writings of the prophets or the Psalms knows that people who know and love and trust God also complain to Him when things are going wrong and it seems like He is ignoring us. There are more Psalms that are complaining to God than there are any other kind. Psalms are a lot like songs and many are songs but they are also poetry. The Psalms are really honest ways of talking to God, and when things have gone terribly wrong, the Psalms really, really complain to God about it. And we can do that because we have a relationship with Him, like we have with our friends or family, and He loves us and wants us to come to Him when things have gone all wrong. We don’t have to pretend that everything is always okay.
There are 150 Psalms in the Bible and forty-two of them are someone complaining to God and sixteen more have the entire community of Israelites complaining to God! That’s fifty-eight complaining Psalms! And there is one whole book of the Bible that is just nothing but someone just being sad and complaining. The prophets also complain a whole lot—especially Jeremiah because people were always doing nasty stuff to him like throwing him in a pit. But the complaining psalms, which we call laments, aren’t just about complaining. They are also about remembering who God is and what He has done for us in the past and remembering again that we really can trust Him to do what is right. Of course, Abram’s problem is that he doesn’t have much history to go on. His family were idol worshipers, and he probably was too. All he really has to go on is that when he left home and followed God, that he ended up in a place that was perfect for growing things and raising critters. But even though God had promised him a lot, none of it had happened yet. Abram wasn’t a great nation, he didn’t have any children, he didn’t have even an acre of land to call his own, he didn’t have a great name and he wasn’t blessing anyone at the moment. No wonder Abram was scared of dying in the Negev desert, and in Egypt too!
Abram was worried, and he really didn’t have much positive history or memories to go on. In future times, when the children of Israel were in trouble and wondering if God had abandoned them, they would remember how God freed them from slavery during the Exodus, and how He miraculously gave them water and quail (a small bird) and manna (the bread from heaven) in the wilderness so that they wouldn’t starve. They remembered how God parted the waters and how their ancestors walked through on dry land. But most of all, they remembered that God kept all of His promises to Abram. They could look back and remember how God always took care of them. And a lot of times, that wasn’t even enough for them because they still wouldn’t trust Him. But Abram doesn’t have any of that. All Abram has is trust, and trust is hard without a history of good things between two people and even between a person and God.
I bet you have had times in your life where things seemed really scary and you didn’t know if it was going to be okay in the end. And sometimes, people will say, “God is good. Just trust God!” They aren’t wrong to say that, but it isn’t really helpful either because they aren’t giving you any reasons why you should trust God and maybe you don’t know Him well enough yet to trust Him. And that’s really a tough place to be. You can’t just pretend to trust God when you are scared—it doesn’t work. A lot of grownups out there pretend to trust God when they really don’t because they are afraid to be honest about how they are really feeling. They should probably read the Psalms so that they can know that the people who wrote them didn’t always trust God and they even accused Him of forgetting about them or being unfair and not caring about what is right. Wow, if the people who wrote the Bible felt that way and could even say it without getting a lightning bolt to their butts then God must really want us to know that it is okay if we feel that way too. He knows that we can’t help it and when we are finally honest with Him?–that’s when He can begin to help us deal with it.
And sometimes when bad things happen, we wonder if it is our fault and God is punishing us because He is angry with us. I know what that is like too. Everybody does! The people in the Bible asked that too. Sometimes we forget that bad things happen to absolutely everyone, and usually it isn’t because we did anything wrong. Bad things just happen, and they have always happened, and they will always happen. When there is a hurricane on the East Coast, or an earthquake on the West Coast, or forest fires from lightning, or tornadoes in the Midwest, or blizzards in the north, that’s actually a normal part of life. We don’t have to ask if we are being punished but we do need to pray to God for help when those things happen. If we are always looking for someone to blame, even ourselves, then we usually won’t want to ask God for help because we will be so scared that we will either ignore Him or we will try to get as far away from Him as possible—like Cain! Maybe that’s how Abram felt when they got into trouble in the Negev desert. Maybe he was worried that he or someone in his household had made God angry and that they were being punished. You know what? The gods that Abram grew up worshiping were exactly like that. They were very mean, and selfish, and cruel, and even if they were nice yesterday, they might be trying to kill you tomorrow. Can you imagine believing that about our God? It was going to take Abram a long time to figure out that God is nothing like the gods that his family worshiped. But he isn’t there yet.
That makes us very blessed because we have something that Abram never had. Abram never had a Bible! Sometimes that surprises people, but how could Abram read about himself, right? One time, I was listening to a teaching, many years ago, and the man said, “Do you know why Adam and Eve were tricked by the Serpent? Because when it said all those things about God and about the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they didn’t respond to it with Bible verses like Jesus did when He was tempted.” But, Adam and Eve didn’t have a Bible either. I mean, they were living in chapter three so even if they did, they wouldn’t have very much to work with and nothing useful for dealing with temptation. You and I, however, are different. We have Bibles. We have Bibles in so many different languages! We have Bibles that are actual books, and on the computer and on our phones. We have calendars with Bible verses. We have churches where we can learn about the Bible and television programs. But Abram didn’t. No Bible. No Church. Abram was living the Bible, and the reason we trust God is because we read about his experiences with God and how God never let Abram down and always kept His promises no matter what Abram did to mess things up.
Do you know why I teach about Abram’s mistakes and about how he wasn’t perfect? It isn’t to make fun of Abram or so that you will hate him. You see, the Bible is God’s story and not Abram’s story. We learn about God by watching what He does when people mess up, make the wrong choices, and sin. Let me tell you what we have learned about God so far by watching what He does and doesn’t do with Abram. First of all, God isn’t a control freak. He gives Abram advice and guidance and promises when Abram needs it but mostly, He lets Abram live his own life. That means that Abram will sometimes make bad choices, but God doesn’t kill him or smite him. God doesn’t really even seem angry that Abram brought Lot along on the journey—even though there will be bad consequences later. God didn’t punish Abram for lying to Pharaoh and getting Sarai taken away either. Instead, God showed His patience and His mercy in getting Sarai back and seeing to it that no one killed Abram. You see, when God loves us, He loves us and He is very patient. More patient than parents and teachers and brothers and sisters or anyone. As you see the ways that Abram and Sarai are going to let God down and not trust Him, I want you to know that He is still that patient and merciful and loving. He isn’t just waiting for you to do one thing wrong so that He can blast you—He wants you to learn to love and trust Him. And by watching how good He is no matter what Abram does, you will find out more about what He is really like and why Jesus is so wonderful because Jesus is just like God.
In fact, I could tell you a lot of stories about things that Jesus’s own disciples did, over and over again, that were really messed up and clueless and wrong-headed and Jesus still never gave up on them. You know, Jesus could have chosen a bunch of people who were wise and mature and even a lot smarter but instead, Jesus chose a bunch of guys who were probably mostly teenagers. He didn’t choose people who had everything figured out already because that wouldn’t have worked. Jesus, and God for that matter, chooses people for all sorts of things who just don’t look like the right choice. God looks inside us and sees our potential—even when all the world things we are hopeless failures. Potential is all about what we can be, if we make the right choices and listen to the right voices and when we allow God to make big changes in us that don’t always seem like a good idea. God saw that I could be a teacher when I couldn’t even teach a fish to swim, and He decided to make me a teacher for kids before I even liked kids. Sorry. Yeah, it’s true, when I was a young adult, I did not like kids and didn’t want to have any kids but God changed both of those things when I started listening to Him.
You need to know that God can do absolutely anything with your life that He wants to do. You can be things that you can’t even imagine and do things and think thoughts that seem impossible right now. All you have to do is learn to trust Him and cooperate with Him. Just like Abram. And sometimes you won’t trust Him and you won’t cooperate with Him. Just like Abram. Sometimes you won’t be very patient with His promises and you will figure that you know how to make things happen faster or in a better way than God can. Just like Sarai and Abram. Sometimes other people will get into trouble when you try to do things your way instead of His way. Just like Abram and Sarai. But as that happens, you will learn over time that God’s ways really are the best and His promises are worth waiting for. It doesn’t mean that waiting will be fun or easy but it does mean that you will be glad you waited for Him to do things His way.
I love you. I am praying for you. And I want you to think about trusting God. I want you to ask the grownups in your life about times that they trusted God when they were scared and maybe even times they didn’t and they had to be rescued. Or when God took an impossible situation and made everything even better than it was before! Other people’s experiences with God, like the ones we find in books about great Christian heroes and missionaries, can help us to believe and can build up our faith that we serve a God who makes impossible things happen.