The Hall of Faith or The Hall of Shame?

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” — Hebrews 11:8

Abraham is one of those Bible characters we tend to put on a pedestal.

He is known for his unwavering faith. He is commended throughout Scripture for trusting God.

When God told Abraham to leave his home and travel to an unknown land, Abraham packed up his stuff and went.

When God told Abraham to take his one and only son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice, Abraham set out the next morning.

That's faith, right?

I have always looked up to Abraham.

But if I'm being honest, I never really related to him.

I haven't always trusted God.

Many times, it takes me messing things up royally before I finally decide to stop doing things my way and do them God's way.

So I had always lumped Abraham into that category of almost-perfect Bible characters.

You know the ones.

The people who seem to have gotten it right more often than they got it wrong.

Until I looked a little closer at Abraham's life.

And then I came across this verse.

“Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’” — Genesis 17:17

Wait.

Abraham laughed at a promise from God?

Abraham Wasn't as Perfect as I Thought

Abraham had been claiming senior citizen status for a while at this point.

God had promised Abraham that He would make his descendants as numerous as the stars, but the years kept passing.

And passing.

And passing.

Twenty-five years passed.

Still no promised son.

At some point, Sarah felt forgotten by the Lord and decided to take matters into her own hands. She gave her servant, Hagar, to Abraham, and Hagar conceived and gave birth to Ishmael.

Abraham was eighty-six years old.

And I imagine that, as far as Abraham could understand, Ishmael must have seemed like the answer to God's promise.

But thirteen years later, when Abraham was ninety-nine, God told him that the promised child would still come through Sarah.

Sarah.

Who was eighty-nine years old.

Abraham couldn't wrap his mind around it.

So he laughed.

For a brief moment, Abraham forgot that God was God.

And Abraham wasn't finished making mistakes.

On two separate occasions, he lied about Sarah being his wife because he was afraid that he would be killed and that a foreign king would take her for himself.

Abraham allowed his fear for his life to temporarily usurp his faith that God could and would protect him.

This is the guy who ends up in Hebrews 11's Hall of Faith?

I don't get it.

It seems to me that laughing at God's promise and lying because you're afraid for your life ought to disqualify you from the Hall of Faith.

But God didn't see Abraham that way.

God Didn't Disqualify Him

Despite Abraham's failures, Scripture still commends him for his faith.

God didn't erase Abraham's name from the story because he had moments when his faith wavered.

He didn't decide Abraham was no longer useful because he had made some really poor choices.

Instead, God continued working in him.

And maybe that's because God isn't looking for perfect.

God is looking for faith that grows.

That doesn't mean our failures don't matter.

They do.

Our choices have consequences and sin is serious.

But God is much more interested in what He is doing in us through our failures than He is in holding those failures over our heads forever.

We tend to label people by their worst moments.

Teen mom.

Divorcee.

Alcoholic.

Addict.

Failure.

We take something someone did or something that happened to them and turn it into a permanent name tag.

But God sees the whole story.

He sees where we've been.

He sees where we are.

And He sees where He's taking us.

Look at David

David certainly wasn't perfect.

He's committed adultery and murder.

But that's not the end of his story.

We remember the young shepherd boy who trusted God enough to stand in front of a giant when everyone else was afraid.

And Scripture calls David a man after God's own heart.

Look at Moses

Moses killed a man.

He ran away.

He spent years in the wilderness.

He had moments of fear and doubt.

And yet God called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness.

God didn't pretend Moses' failures never happened.

He simply didn't allow those failures to be the final word.

And I think that's an important distinction.

Our failures can be part of our story without becoming our identity.

I Know This One Personally

I don't want to be remembered for my failures.

I don't want to always be thought of as the rebellious teenager who ran away from home, was given a second chance, blew it, and ended up pregnant at 18.

For way too long, I allowed Satan and the judgmental criticism of others to convince me that those things had permanently labeled me.

But that's not how God saw me.

God saw what I couldn't see yet.

He knew that hitting rock bottom would eventually cause me to begin pursuing a relationship with Him.

He knew my faith would grow.

He knew there would be hard things ahead that would teach me what it really meant to abide in Him.

He knew the whole story.

I only knew the chapter I was living.

And maybe that's the difference between the Hall of Shame and the Hall of Faith.

We tend to look backward and see the failures.

God sees what He is doing through them.

Where Will Your Failure Take You?

Maybe you've got a past you wish you could erase.

Maybe you've made choices you deeply regret.

Maybe someone else has made sure you haven't forgotten them.

Maybe you've spent years wearing a name tag God never gave you.

Unworthy.
Disqualified.
Failure.
Too far gone.
Not enough.

But your failures don't have to be the end of your story.

What if God wants to use those very places of brokenness to grow something in you that couldn't have grown any other way?

What if the place where you fell becomes the place where you finally learn to depend on Him?

What if the thing you are most ashamed of becomes part of the testimony of God's grace in your life?

That's what I see now when I look at Abraham.

I don't see a perfect man.

I see a man who sometimes trusted God deeply and sometimes struggled to believe Him.

I see a man who made some really bad decisions and still ended up in the Hall of Faith.

And honestly?

That gives me hope.

I hope it gives you hope too.

I hope your failures have taken you to the Hall of Faith instead of leaving you trapped in the Hall of Shame.

I hope they have brought you to the throne of grace instead of drowning you in an endless sea of guilt.

Because it isn't our moments of failure that have to define us.

Allow God to use them to begin a work of faith that, when mature, becomes part of your legacy.