Good Morning Gorgeous,

Its a brand new day. A fresh start. A day to move and rise as if you believe that the promises of God are for you and about you. A day to move like a child of God. A day to release and put down all of the what if scenarios. Just boldly and courageous move ahead and live each day facing whatever comes your way with the blessed assurance that wherever you tread, God is there and God will continually be there.

Abraham, a man who trusted and believed in God, and God credited it to him as righteousness didn’t always trust so readily. He learned to trust God. He learned to believe that God would protect and provide and bless.

In my bible reading this morning, Abraham, who actually hasn’t received his new name from God yet, so he is Abram. Abram and his beautiful wife Sarai have arrived at Egypt because of a famine and here is what Abram tells her:

Then a famine came to the land. Abram went down to Egypt to live; it was a hard famine. As he drew near to Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, “Look. We both know that you’re a beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you they’re going to say, ‘Aha! That’s his wife!’ and kill me. But they’ll let you live. Do me a favor: tell them you’re my sister. Because of you, they’ll welcome me and let me live.”

Genesis 12:10‭-‬13 MSG

He pretends that his wife is not actually his wife and instead tells everyone that she is his sister. When they arrive in Egypt, her beauty is noticed by the Egyptian princes and she is taken up to the Pharaohs house.

God strikes the Pharoah and the officials in the palace with serious illnesses. When the Pharaoh discovers that Sarai is Abram’s wife, he asks Abram, “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?” Then he sends him and Sarai away and he even allows them to keep all of their belongings and livestock that they accumulated while they were there.

This was not the only recorded time that Abram tells people that Sarai is his sister. It gives a glimpse into a fearful heart. He is expecting the worst when he enters a new territory so he plays his wife as his sister so they don’t kill him for her. In those days, women were treated as property of their father and brothers. So if a man wanted to marry a woman, he must treat her brothers very well to receive their favor.

Instead of being honest and trusting that God would provide the favor from the people that Abram was encountering, he trusted his own knowledge of the culture of the times and used it to protect him by telling people Sarai is his sister.

He never had to resort to that. God was with Abram. God was talking to Abram and telling him where to go, don’t you think God would have protected him in the very places He sent him? Earlier in this chapter, it is God who sends him on his way. Wherever God sends you, He will be with you!

We are often guilty of this same thinking. Thinking ahead to the worst possible scenario and then making decisions as if that worst case scenario is real. Abram didn’t know that the town would treat him poorly, he just assumed that with his thinking. He predetermined that the Pharoah would treat him poorly, and he acted as if it were so. There was little faith in God for protection. Yet, even through his doubt and lack of trust, God protected Abram and Sarai and helped them to leave town with many blessings.

Friends, let’s ask God to help us deal with our what if thinking. This type of thinking is the fruit of seeds of doubt. We are doubting God’s goodness, God’s provision, God’s Hand at work in our lives. And its exhausting to deal with life through “What ifs?”

There are enough actual issues to face without adding imagined emergencies to deal with. Let’s look to the Lord in each moment, and walk with assurance that we don’t have to scheme or adjust our plans based on what might happen. Instead we will deal with each moment as it comes with the Lord on our side.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Release us from the grip of worry, doubt, stress, angst, and imagined dread. Break these anxious worries thoughts off of us. And replace the seeds of what if thinking with knowledge of the Presence of God who goes before us and beside us, who walks with us and talks with us and has us in His protective Hands. Lord, draw us in and fill us with Your peace and strengthen our faith. In Jesus’s name, Amen.