When God’s plan is challenged by our tendency to settle for less
1) Reminder: What was God’s plan for Abram?
- If that plan had failed, what would have been the consequences?
2) If you had been Abram, what would you have expected to happen to you in Canaan? -> Why not a famine?
Read Genesis 12:10-20
3) What would you have concluded when facing the famine that struck the area?
- What were Abram’s options how to react?
- What do you think of Abram’s decision to move to Egypt?
- Was Abram really more safe in Egypt? (Imagine Pharaoh’s fury when he found out the scheme)
- Why did Abram not spontaneously return to Canaan once the famine was over? Why did he stay in Egypt?
- Read Ps 84:10. Why did this songwriter have different priorities? v1-2
4) What do you think of God’s intervention how he got Abram and Sarai ‘back on track’?
- Did he intervene to judge anyone?
- If so, why would God bring plagues on the house of Pharao rather than on Abram? cf Ps 105:14-15; Mt 18:6-7
- Did Abram’s move help to secure the success of God’s plan for him?
- Hint: By giving up Sarai, did Abram help God to make him a blessing?
- Why did God let all this happen without intervening earlier, e.g. by stopping or preventing already the famine?
- If God tests our faith, who needs to find out whether or not we already endure and pass such a test? The omniscient God? What is the testing of their faith intended to reveal instead to believers themselves? cf Ro 5:3-5
5) Application
- Should believers expect to be spared from any kind of ‘famine’? Why not?
- What difficult circumstances in your life feel (or have felt) like a famine?
- Can such famines endanger God’s plan for your life? Why or why not?
- What incentives or ‘benefactors’ could potentially make you give up the ‘promised land’ for their sake?
- When tempted to settle for less than what God promised, how can we ‘see to it that in our hearts we do not give up hope’ (Heb 3:12-13)?
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