Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech.

Genesis 20: 17

 

This is a story of fear and failure to trust, a tale of how the very human man, Abraham, couldn’t find it in his heart to remain strong, or better, to live in the center of the strength that God grants to His children. Thus, Abraham deceived Abimelech and came very close to putting him directly into the path of God’s righteous anger and all of its consequences. Although he was not one of God’s chosen, God came directly to Abimelech and warned him in clear and honestly direct terms about the dangerous course that he had entered upon because of Abraham’s deception.

 

There was a spiritual disaster in the making in these events, for here was a man who God, Himself, had visited and had eaten a meal with. Abraham was a man who was to become known as a “friend of God”; still, he was allowing fear, uncertainty, and his inability to trust God above his own understanding to cause him to fail miserably in his mandate to bring the Lord’s truth and His loving grace into the lives of the seeking souls around him. Still, the Lord’s plans and His will are greater than anything that we people are capable of doing to thwart them. Also, through His grace, God permits us to redeem the catastrophic situations that we create.

 

So God called upon Abraham to enter into a time of focused and concentrated prayer on behalf of Abimelech in order to seek healing for him. Whatever my have been hurting or diseased with Abimelech’s body, it was his soul that needed healing. He would never be whole until he had surrendered his own life to the God of all Creation. Thus, this is what Abraham sought for his new friend. This is what God asks all of us to do as well. We are all to seek God’s gracious and saving intervention in the lives of all people without regard for what our past experiences with them might have been like. We are also to set aside our fears and apprehensions that are based on a person’s race, religion, and affiliations. Then we need to watch in amazement and joy as the Lord works to bring these people into common familial relationship with us as we become one in Christ.