Be Thou a Blessing!

Unless we see Chapters 2-11 of Genesis as an "uncreation" story, the backdrop to Genesis 12, we don't "get" God's words to Abraham:  I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on the earth will be blessed through you (Gen. 12:2-3).

In order to understand what God is saying to Abraham, it's important to see Genesis 1-11 as "setting the stage" for the drama that is about to unfold in the rest of Scripture.  The first 11 chapters are all about men trying to "accomplish" the very things that God tells Abraham here He will do for him:

Cain wanted to be blessed by God, and he was jealous of Abel's blessing -- so he killed Abel.

Those who built the tower of Babel wanted to "make their names great" on the earth, so they were going to use the latest technology to build an edifice to the heavens -- a skyscraper like the Trump Tower in Chicago.

Lamech (Gen. 4) told his wives that whoever harmed him would be repaid seven times over--the law of revenge.

The first 11 chapters of Genesis are all about greed, jealously, envy, ambition -- desiring recognition, using violence, power, technology, knowledge, or strength to establish man's name on the earth.  Then, in Genesis 12, the light shines on the stage, and Abraham enters.  He is told to leave his people and his father's house -- the old way of doing things, "the empty way of life handed down by your fathers," and "go to a land I will show you."

If we allow God to lead us, teach us, transform us into His image instead of the image of our earthly fathers, He "will make our name great."  Mary rejoiced in God her savior because "He has had regard for the lowliness of His handmaid, and all generations will call me blessed.....He has lifted up the lowly from the dust and cast down the mighty from their thrones, just as He promised Abraham, our father."

What God promised to Abraham, He also promises to us:  I will make your name great, and through you all nations will be blessed!  Abraham was a fore-runner of Jesus, the ultimate blessing on the earth, but "from the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another" (Jn. 1:16).

Jesus said, "As the Father has sent me, so I also send you."  To do what?  To be a blessing on the earth, as was Abraham and all who followed him.  Be Thou a Blessing!  What can I do to be a "blessing" to my family, my friends, my neighbors?  How can I bless them with the same blessings I myself have received from God?

He sends us into a dark world, a world without light, a world without hope.  But we have within us the Light of the World, the blessing of the incarnate Son of God.  Can we let His light shine out of us to the world around us?