Yet Not I
“When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.”
To make a covenant would mean to make a promise that tied you and another’s mortality to the survival of both of your integrity; this is the extremity and gravity to the covenant-making process shown to us in the Old Testament. The covenant God makes with Abram has always been my favourite.
Working with kids, there is always joyfulness and playfulness. It’s easy to find laughter in any conversation and whether they’re making me laugh, or me making them laugh, my heart is full.
I celebrate the moments where kids, who’ve never even met but live so close by to each other, become friends. I cherish the moments where they practice Gospel love to each other without even realizing it, like offering their Pokemon cards to comfort an injured and crying friend, or holding their tongue when they know something terrible and unloving is going to come out (rare…but it does happen!). I carry dearly in my heart the moments of their eureka of God in their lives and in who He is. I get the privilege to witness and experience the work being done in their lives and hearts time and time again; to take part in it, to contribute something.
Even still, there are many moments when my heart is heavy, often when they move away. I mourn the momentum we had with them, in growing our friendship with the family and making Christ greater known in their household, the lost opportunities, the unspoken and yet-to-be-had conversations, the stolen joys of what could have been – what I could have seen and been part of.
It is in God alone that the fruition of the contract would be fulfilled
Genesis 15 shows us an incredible story of God, our truest and only hero, the one of greatest and perfect integrity. We see that in the act of the smoking firepot and blazing torch passing between the hall of animal carcasses, as Abram slumbers, the presence of God stamps the covenant closed with His own name alone. Whether Abram fell into that deep sleep on his own or by God’s hand, it relinquishes any responsibility of his to keep his end of the promise. It is in God alone that the fruition of the contract would be fulfilled, and in anything that is compromising, it would only end in consequence for Him. In the very next chapter, in Genesis 16, we see the story of Hagar and Ishmael, the fruit of Abram’s unfaithfulness and unbelief in God's promise to him. There would have been no hope for anyone if Abram had stayed awake the whole time of that covenant process. Our God is a faithful God; faithful to His promises, His people, so much so that He gave Himself mortality on this earth to be destroyed by our hands in fulfilling the covenant, not because of His broken integrity, but ours. It is in God alone, in Christ alone, that anything Kingdom related can ever be accomplished. I thank God that He has shared with me a piece of His heart for the families I’ve met. And even as life moves on and brings us to different places, would I remember that God is constant and at work not just in my life, but theirs as well. He is the one who calls His children home.