For the past two years, I’ve been in a YouVersion Bible study with men from all over the U.S. These guys really love the Lord, and honestly, being with them has been good for my soul. Studying Genesis together has opened up the Word in ways I wasn’t expecting. Sometimes someone shares something so deep that I think, this must be what it felt like to sit with C. S. Lewis or Charles Spurgeon. Then I remember who I am, smile, and thank God that He lets me be part of this group at all. Their humility is the real treasure. I feel incredibly blessed, and it has pushed me to study the Bible with fresh hunger.

Recently, we were reading about Abram, and I was gobsmacked again at how personal Scripture can get. His story stirred something in me because I see it in so many lives around us — parents crying out for reconciliation with their kids, and men and women who are fighting like crazy to walk in freedom from temptations that never seem to quit. And with Christmas coming, the season of promises finally fulfilled, this hit me even harder. A lot of us are still waiting, still knocking, still hoping for God to move and bring home what feels lost.

Reflection 1: The Pattern of Promise and Partial Obedience

Abram’s story starts with God calling him out of Haran — a place whose name is often connected with dryness or barrenness. And honestly, many of us know exactly what that feels like. God calls us out of something empty and points us toward something beautiful that we can’t see yet. That’s faith.

Then God gives Abram a second round of encouragement through a confirming dream. I love that. God knows we’re fragile. He knows we need reminders. So He reminds Abram.

But then Abram obeys… kind of. God told him to leave his family, but he brings Lot along anyway. And I thought, Yep. There it is. Human nature. We hear God clearly, but we only halfway obey because we want to keep something familiar, something comfortable, something we think we need. I’ve done that more times than I want to admit.

A lot of believers I know truly love God, but they feel this same tug-of-war inside. Hope and fear, faith and grief, longing and uncertainty are all tangled together. Abram’s story gets right into that tension, the place where we’re trying to trust God and still wrestling with our own humanity at the same time.

Abram settles for a time in Shechem. Later in Scripture, this same region is where Jesus meets the woman at the well. I can’t get over that. The promise God begins in Genesis connects all the way to the Messiah ministering to a broken woman whose testimony changed her whole community.

Then Abram sets up camp with Bethel (“house of God”) on one side and Ai (“desolate place”) on the other, and right between them he builds an altar. That picture gets me every time. Life often puts us between God’s presence and desolation. The altar — the place of worship and surrender — stands right there in the middle.

Then the famine hits. And this is where the story turns hard.

Reflection 2: The Temptation to Run to Egypt Instead of Returning to the Altar

When the famine comes, Abram doesn’t go back to the altar he built. He doesn’t stop to pray. He doesn’t ask God what to do. He heads straight for Egypt. He just packs up and goes. No conversation, no consultation. I read that and thought, Abram, my man… what are you doing?

But the Holy Spirit reminds me that I’ve done the same thing many times.

When life gets complicated, painful, or overwhelming, most of us don’t slow down and seek the Lord. We panic. We pull away. We scramble for solutions. Egypt becomes the place we run to when faith feels too risky.

When Abram arrives in Egypt, fear overtakes him. He asks Sarai to lie, saying she is his sister, because he believes the Egyptians will kill him for her beauty. And I almost said out loud, What?! Come on, Abram! But again, fear makes fools out of the best of us. I’ve made decisions that made just as little sense when I was scared or exhausted.

Pharaoh takes Sarai into his household. Plagues hit Pharaoh and his people. Something exposes the truth — Scripture doesn’t say how — and Pharaoh rebukes Abram and sends him away with Sarai and everything he has. And here’s the wild part: Abram leaves Egypt with more than he brought — but not all of it was good (perhaps even Hagar). Even when Abram fails, God protects. God intervenes. God covers.

Then Abram returns to the place where he first called on the Lord. After all the fear, all the bad decisions, all the running, Abram remembers where he belongs.

Back at the altar.

That’s the heart of the story for me. God gives promises. We believe. Then trouble comes, and instead of going to the altar — the place of prayer, surrender, and meeting — we sprint to Egypt. We try to fix everything ourselves. We forget God’s faithfulness. We forget His voice. We forget His promise. We forget that it’s not all about us.

Is faith hard? Yes.
Does God always do what we expect? No.
Does that make Him unkind? Not even a little.

His ways are higher. His thoughts are higher. He sees the entire battlefield when we only see a few feet ahead.

Our world often says God isn’t good because evil exists. But Jeremiah says the human heart is deceitful above all things. If God blessed everything people desired, the world would tear itself apart. His restraint is mercy, even when we don’t understand it.

I’ve known people who walked away from God because He didn’t give them what they demanded. And it breaks my heart every time. Jesus died on the cross to give us everything we truly need, and still some people turn aside. Even when Jesus walked the earth, people walked away from Him.

And then I think of Corrie ten Boom. Arrested. Beaten. Sent to Ravensbrück. Losing her father and sister. And she came out saying, “There is no pit so deep that Jesus is not deeper still.” That is faith that has been to Egypt and back — faith that went straight to the altar afterward.

Conclusion: Christmas and the Promise Kept

This Christmas season, I hope we remember that God always keeps His promises, even when the waiting feels endless. He kept His promise in Bethlehem. He keeps His promises now. He calls us out of barren places. He meets us at the altar. And He invites us to trust Him when we cannot see the path.

Will He accomplish His will and not ours?
Yes. A million times yes.

I leave you with 1 Peter 1:3–9, a reminder of our living hope:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials,
7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,
8 whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
9 receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.