0+0=10
By
Elin Henderson
“God,
who gives life to the dead and calls
those things which do not exist as though they did..."
Romans
4:17b (NIV)
There is only one economy
where this formula works: God’s economy! Only He can create something out of
nothing. This verse comes in the midst of Paul’s sermon on Abraham and his
amazing faith. Of anyone in Scripture, Abraham truly believed God to create
something out of nothing. Let’s face it, God’s promise to give Abraham and
Sarah a son came way after their child-bearing years were past and THEN….God
waited another couple of decades to fulfill His promise, turning the impossible
into the REALLY impossible. Now, that is some serious faith in God’s economics.
0+0=10 (or even 1010) How? Why? Abraham was convinced that (vs. 21)
“…what He had promised He was also able to perform.”
This faith was later
tested in a major way when God asked Abraham to sacrifice this miracle-son he had
longed and waited for. He had seen God take 0+0 and make 10 out of it before, and
once again drew from that faith to believe that if God took them back to 0 once
more, he could certainly turn it back into 10. He had seen God bring life out
of death (the emptiness of Sarah’s womb) and believed that once more His God
would come through.
This is such a faith
challenge to me. How often it seems like life is just handing me 0 after 0. I
feel depleted and there is nothing there to draw from… no funds, no strength,
no purpose, no future, no hope… God challenges me to stop thinking in my human
economy and start trusting in His divine economy. He alone specializes in making
SOMETHING out of NOTHING: turning that 0+0 into 10 for His glory and my good!
GOING DEEPER:
1. What other
stories in Scripture can you think of where God created something out of
nothing – or next to nothing?? (To get you started: Creation,
Manna and
Water in the Wilderness for the Israelites, The
feeding of the 5,000)
FURTHER READING:
Oakwood’s
missionaries Elin Henderson (a registered nurse) and her husband Phil serve as
church planters with New Tribes in Mozambique, Africa. Elin is mother to fifteen-year-old
Callie and twelve-year-old Elias.
