Being Abraham - a book for the aged.

This world is full of people who are journeying. All of them have a calling to be blessed and become a blessing. Like Abraham we live in hope and like Abraham we see only a partial fulfillment of that hope. Abraham’s life is already lived and his story well told. There are parts of his story that we can identify with, and in those parts we find an ancestor and a hope. Hope is what we need when there is no time left to start over again, and when our estimation of who we are and what we have done begins to be tarnished and chipped as we view it through the eyes of a new generation.

Abraham gave gifts to his other children but only one child received an inheritance. When David and I were very young, we were part of a group of young parents, who talked together after church. We all hoped our children wouldn’t inherit our weaknesses along with our talents. I remember how hard we tried to eliminate the inherited weaknesses, and how useless our efforts were. The absent minded father had produced absent minded children and the woman who was always late produced children who were always late. For better or worse our children, even the adopted ones, copied our weaknesses as well as inherited our talents.

The true inheritance was faith. But note this: it was not Abraham's faith they inherited, because everyone must believe for himself, but it was God's faith-keeping that was gifted to them, the faithfulness of God. God who continued to fulfill the promise he had made to Abraham in the lives of Abraham's children and great grandchildren. God is faithful, that phrase becomes a mantra as we look back at our lives: lives which will have an end but sometimes feel incomplete. The inheritance is sure and will not be eroded. God is great and God is good, he keeps his promises and will watch our grandchildren as they journey through the wide complexities of this world and a future we know nothing of.