“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went…”-Hebrews 11:8
I don’t know about you, but when I think about the story of Abraham, I picture a guy enjoying life, big smile on his face, getting ready to maybe take his wife out for a large lunch and then come home to take a nap on the couch. You know, life is pretty good. Then suddenly God calls out to him and says GO! And Abraham just walks down the hall to their bedroom where his wife Sarah is talking on Facebook and says we are leaving—and so they get up and go. I don’t think that Abraham knew this was coming when he woke up that morning. I think that this was probably something that caught both he and Sarah a little off guard. And yet, he obeyed and went.
Now if you are a fan of college football or even if you are not a fan, you may be aware of the drama that unfolded last week as the University of Texas longhorns played the Alabama Crimson Tide for the national championship game. Colt McCoy, the Longhorns MVP and star quarterback was taken out of the game early in the first quarter with an injury never to return to the game. The coach of the Longhorns, Mack Brown, had to look down the sidelines at a young freshman backup quarterback named Garrett Gilbert who had played very sparingly during the season and tell him that his number was up and it was now on his shoulders to go out and win a national championship game for UT. As you can imagine, during the first few plays for Garrett he looked like a deer in headlights—the game was just too fast and he was ill prepared. As Garrett headed to the locker room at halftime having just given up a costly turnover that led to a touchdown by Alabama, Garrett was in tears. Meanwhile, Colt McCoy was also in tears in the locker room after hearing from the coaches and his own father that his amazing college career was over. As Colt would later say, “I am a man of faith in God, and so I won’t question why this was God’s plan for me tonight, it just was.”
Two different players both in tears in the locker room at halftime of an important game. Both men facing stress, both men facing pressure, both men facing confusion and both men’s fate completely, totally and utterly in the hands of an all knowing almighty God. Now Garrett could have easily given up, told his coach that the stress was just too much and that he was not going to go back into the game after halftime, but he didn’t. And while I would love to tell you that Garrett led the Longhorns to victory—I can’t. But what he did do was to get back into the game, to play as hard as he could in the situation that he was thrust into and to simply leave the results on the field with Colt McCoy all the while encouraging him, cheering him on and praying for him on the sidelines.
Now my point here is not that Garrett heard from God to get back on the field and was obedient to this calling. I don’t know if Garrett is even a believer. The point is that like Abraham, I am sure he got up in the morning with a smile on his face, thinking it was going to be a pretty good day. He was on a team playing for a national championship and he was only a freshman. All he had to do was to sit back, watch, learn, cheer and hopefully get a ring. But of course, God had other plans (“For I know the plans I have for you declare the Lord.”)
God stories like these involving unsuspecting people are not simply found in the pages of the Bible but are seen all around us every day. In fact, this may be YOU tomorrow morning. The question is, how will you respond if called?
