And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said to her: This is your kindness that you should do for me: in every place, wherever we go, say of me, “He is my brother.” (Gen 20,13)

It is not easy for most people to understand why God made Abraham wait so long for the birth of the promised son. As El-shaddai, the Almighty, he could have acted long ago, but he did not. Why?

We have already mentioned that God did not want the son to be given to that Abraham (actually Abram) who he was like in the beginning. It is a mystery that the untransformed mind cannot comprehend: God's treasures cannot be possessed by a carnal man. After the fall, God denied man, whose defining component had become "flesh," access to the tree of life. A person without deeper spiritual experience believes that God is essentially a kind of St. Nicholas who distributes gifts to people. Since he does receive some in the beginning and encounters the incredible principle of God's grace in salvation, he is affirmed that this is true: everything is free and most certainly immediately. But later he discovers that it doesn't quite work that way, and his faith withers as a result; he hasn't understood or not been told, that his faith will be tested, his heart transformed in the wilderness of life. It is not an easy road, but it is the only road to spiritual riches and victory. Abraham walked that path, too, and for 24 years by now. The events in Gerar probably take place shortly before the miracle of Isaac's conception, and now he was approaching the glorious moment when the promise could be fulfilled.

When a man is slowly changing within, it is rather his surroundings that take notice. We ourselves notice our changes when they are greater and take place at a particular moment, i.e., in leaps and bounds. Most of the time it is a stage of crisis, a trial, which forces us to change our attitudes and outlook and throws us into the arms of God.

According to what he said to Abimelech, Abraham still perceived his situation as very dangerous just before the conception of Isaac. He certainly thought a lot about his situation. If he had had the opportunity to look at it from God's perspective, he would have come to the conclusion - that he didn't actually have to tell a half-truth at all. He was in the center of God's view, literally the apple of His eye. Nothing would have happened to him - for that would have made an end of the line of God's nation on earth, His plan for the whole world! But Abraham still sees God (literally the deity - Elohim) - as those who have "let him wander" while he is given over to the adversity of life, he must protect himself by every means available.

Let us be careful not to judge the mistakes of others - it makes us feel good, and so we love doing it. I do not point it out for this reason. But it is good to understand how Abraham grew spiritually by this example.

For we will continue to witness how he completely let himself into God's hand as he reached the heights of faith in his life. Now such a "leap" in growth is before him. Perhaps it was the situation he found himself in at Gerar and his thinking about it that helped him to do so. It has brought him to an even greater degree of self-surrender to God for life and death, to the heights of faith that God is able to do anything for him, even the utterly impossible.

Shortly thereafter, the promised Isaac came into the world.