Genesis 15:5-7

Things would be infinitely greater than Abraham imagined, for God took him out to see the stars and declared his descendants would be more numerous than these. Earlier (Gen 13:16) God had said they would outnumber the grains of sand in the desert. Abraham was so focused on his immediate problem, but God saw way beyond this. Sometimes God can speak to us about things that will happen when our immediate problems have been overcome, without making any or much mention of how they will be overcome. This can be very frustrating! Indeed God never told Abraham how his problem of childlessness would be overcome, merely that it would be. Many times in the Bible we are told not to worry about things or not to be anxious. We find this very difficult to do, but we need to learn to do it. The best place to start is with the problem you are facing right now. Our natural self will tell us that the problem cannot be solved, and that it would be utterly irresponsible not to worry about it. Even if your natural self does not do this, friends and relatives will! But we need to learn to be different and to learn to live differently. So try refusing to worry about your problem. At first it will be very difficult and you may feel you are not getting very far, but keep at it. Then one day you will see that God is actually true to His word, and that peace has replaced fear and anxiety.

Abraham believed God, and and counted this as righteousness. Genesis 15:6 is one of the key verses in the Bible. Because Abraham believed God, God knew that His plans would eventually be fulfilled in Abraham. Now we might think that from now on everything would work out OK, but as shall see in the next chapter this is far from the case.

God then reminds Abraham that it was He who brought Abraham out of Ur. Maybe Abraham wondered at times if he had been right to leave Ur, but God assures him that He was with him.