God makes a lot of promises in the early chapters of Genesis. It's tempting for us to read the way that God comes personally to folks like Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Isaac, and the like, and to wonder why God doesn't make such personal promises to us. We wonder why God is not making our lives as fruitful and multiplied as theirs.
Why can't we be blessed as much as Abraham?
But what's really interesting - and really cool - about all of these promises that God is making, even as far back as Adam and Eve, is that these promises are not just for the faithful. The promise God made to Abraham was not just for Abraham. The promise God made to Ishmael was not just for Ishmael. The promise God made to Isaac was not just for Isaac. Despite the fact that our Bible goes on to take us on an amazing adventure through the descendants of Jacob (Israel), to whom God also made a promise, the promise of God is never just for that man or woman.
Read through some of these promises in early Genesis again, and you'll notice something: God keeps saying that the blessing on these men will be a blessing for the entire world. God multiplies Abraham's descendants so that the world might know the goodness of God. He keeps saying He's making a nation for the world's sake, not for one man's. Through you, God keeps saying, the whole world will come to know me.
And the same is true in the promise of Jesus thousands of years later; it's why He spent so much of His time with Gentiles.
The promise of God is never just about you. He's always got some greater plan in mind that involves a whole lot more persons, up to and including everyone.
So who might God be trying to bless through you today?
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