There are various theories about why the future remains closed while the present and the past are open to us. One theory is that the future doesn’t yet exist, that it only comes into being when the future becomes the present. Another theory is even if you could know something of the future, how much of it is flexible enough to change to your advantage? How would knowing the future affect your decisions in the present?
Genesis 15
"After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: "Fear not, Abram! I am your shield and the one who will reward you in great abundance."2 But Abram said, "O sovereign Lord, what will you give me since I continue to be childless, and my heir is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 Abram added, "Since you have not given me a descendant, then look, one born in my house will be my heir!" 4 But look, the word of the Lord came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but instead a son who comes from your own body will be your heir." 5 The Lord took him outside and said, "Gaze into the sky and count the stars - if you are able to count them!" Then he said to him, "So will your descendants be." 6 Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord considered his response of faith as proof of genuine loyalty. 7 The Lord said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." 8 But Abram said, "O sovereign Lord, by what can I know that I am to possess it?" 9 The Lord said to him, "Take for me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." 10 So Abram took all these for him and then cut them in two and placed each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half. 11 When birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 When the sun went down, Abram fell sound asleep, and great terror overwhelmed him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign country. They will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. 14 But I will execute judgment on the nation that they will serve. Afterward they will come out with many possessions. 15 But as for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its limit." 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking firepot with a flaming torch passed between the animal parts. 18 That day the Lord made a covenant with Abram: "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River - 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites."
Abram had received a promise from God: that he would be the ancestor of countless multitudes. Time went by, however, and Abram still had no children. After moving to a foreign land and dwelling there as an alien, Abram was now wondering if he had somehow misunderstood what the Lord had said. What if Abram had made a mistake in leaving his own people and going to an unfamiliar place?
So Abram did what a lot of us would do in those circumstances, he began to worry and get anxious. And when God appeared to him again some time later, he decided to get some clarification on the matter. But when God came to him in his dreams, we get a glimpse of why God had not revealed the details of Abram’s future to him. The knowledge that his descendants would be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years must have been a heavy piece of knowledge. Only after this tremendous trial would God’s promise to Abram begin to be fulfilled. Their coming to the Promised Land of Canaan would not only be a homecoming of sorts, it would also be a time of punishment and judgement on the natives in the land, whose evil had finally reached its limit.
I wonder if there was something about God’s voice that alerted Abram to the fact that there was a lot more to the story of his descendants than God was telling him? A tone of bitter sweetness, perhaps?
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