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 sixteen-year-old Callie and fourteen-year-old Elias.
