Are You Sure?

We'll be looking at Genesis, the book of Genesis. If you don't have a Bible, you can use the pew Bible that's in front of you. Genesis is the first book of the Bible. So, we'll be looking at chapter 22, verse 20, all the way through all of chapter 23. Now, if you don't own a Bible, we're very glad that you're here. We would love for you to just be able to keep that Bible. Consider that our gift from us to you. We would love for you to have a copy of God's word that you could keep and read for yourself. Again, we'll be looking at chapter 22, starting in verse 20, all the way to the end of chapter 23. And it says this.

Now after these things Abraham was told, “Milcah also has borne sons to your brother Nahor: Uz his firstborn, his brother Buz, Kemuel the father of Aram, Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.” And Bethuel fathered Rebekah. Milcah bore these eight to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah. Now Sarah lived 127 years; these were all the years of her life. Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. When Abraham got up from beside his dead wife, he spoke to the Hethites: “I am an alien residing among you. Give me burial property among you so that I can bury my dead.” The Hethites replied to Abraham, “Listen to us, my lord. You are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in our finest burial place. None of us will withhold from you his burial place for burying your dead.” Then Abraham rose and bowed down to the Hethites, the people of the land. He said to them, “If you are willing for me to bury my dead, listen to me and ask Ephron son of Zohar on my behalf to give me the cave of Machpelah that belongs to him; it is at the end of his field. Let him give it to me in your presence, for the full price, as burial property.” Ephron was sitting among the Hethites. So in the hearing of all the Hethites who came to the gate of his city, Ephron the Hethite answered Abraham: “No, my lord. Listen to me. I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. I give it to you in the sight of my people. Bury your dead.” Abraham bowed down to the people of the land and said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, “Listen to me, if you please. Let me pay the price of the field. Accept it from me, and let me bury my dead there.” Ephron answered Abraham and said to him, “My lord, listen to me. Land worth four hundred shekels of silver—what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.” Abraham agreed with Ephron, and Abraham weighed out to Ephron the silver that he had agreed to in the hearing of the Hethites: four hundred standard shekels of silver. So Ephron’s field at Machpelah near Mamre—the field with its cave and all the trees anywhere within the boundaries of the field—became Abraham’s possession in the sight of all the Hethites who came to the gate of his city. After this, Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave of the field at Machpelah near Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. The field with its cave passed from the Hethites to Abraham as burial property. — Genesis 22:20-23:20 (CSB)

Let's pray. We pray even with a text like this that you would demonstrate your good plan in our lives by speaking to us by your spirit, because without you we would be utterly lost. So we are dependent on you and your word this morning. And we ask that you would help us in Jesus' name. Amen.

Finding God's Purpose in Seemingly Mundane Texts

Anybody bored by a passage like this? You read it, it almost reads like a courtroom transcript or some kind of narrative that's happening between two parties. It's like this weird negotiation happening with different details. It's almost something that you might be tempted to just skip in your devotions so you could get on to chapter 24 where more interesting stuff happens, as Isaac finds a wife in Rebekah. But I want to encourage you to not be so sure in brushing away such a massive portion of God's word. If you're paying attention to everything that we've seen God do up until this point — all the details, all the activity that God's been doing in the life of Abraham and Sarah — you would find this transcript of conversation between Abraham and Ephron to be utterly riveting. Behind this negotiation and conversations about shekels and fields and people's children, you get to see the steady, invisible hand of an almighty God who's working all things together for the good of those who love him.

See, Moses writes this passage for us this morning to remind us that God is at work even when we don't get it. And he does it by showing us two things: first, you're able to see God's work in the unseen, and second, you can see God's work even in death.

God's Unseen Work in Providence

Let's start with point number one: God's work in the unseen. Read with me from chapter 22, verse 20.

Now after these things Abraham was told, “Milcah also has borne sons to your brother Nahor: Uz his firstborn, his brother Buz, Kemuel the father of Aram, Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.” And Bethuel fathered Rebekah. Milcah bore these eight to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah. — Genesis 22:20-24 (CSB)

Now, you may be wondering, how do I know how to pronounce all of these names? And the answer is, I don't. I'm just saying it. I don't know if you know this, but Hebrew and Greek are extremely hard to pronounce. And we all say it wrong. Even the 'right' way to say it is a wrong way to say it. I was talking with some guys yesterday; I mentioned casually that there was one guy in my undergraduate class who always pronounced 'Isaiah' as 'Isaiah.' I told him, 'Bro, you're right, but also we all hate you.' So these names can almost gloss over in our brain. And in fact, we've already seen a number of genealogies all throughout the book of Genesis, right? You may remember in chapters 1 through 11, there's a number of genealogies that just kind of list people who bore kids, who bore kids, who bore kids. And normally, genealogies function kind of like a time warp, a time lapse, if you will, like a train station going down the timeline. Every name that's mentioned is a train station, kind of flagging significant figures as you follow the people of God throughout God's plans. But this genealogy is different. We're not really fast-forwarding to anything. This isn't talking like a time lapse; you don't get to see generations of people and things that are going on. In chapter 22, we don't see any of the descendants of Abraham. We also don't see any of the descendants leading up to Abraham. Instead, after the binding of Isaac, we find that Abraham is told that his brother had kids—not just that his brother had kids, but he had generations of kids. And why would you include something like that, right? Why talk about these kids of Abraham's brother? It's almost like the text is holding you hostage, like being at a dinner where someone's showing you photos of their child that you really don't know or care for. Like, 'I'm very excited for you, but what does this have to do with me?' Or in the Bible, 'What does this have to do with God?'

Verses 20-24 have everything to do with God. Because while Abraham was dealing with his long journey, his multiple failures, his feats of faithfulness, even passing the test of being willing to sacrifice his own son, God was still at work all around him behind the scenes while he had no idea. His brother Nahor had generations of children. While that information might not be immediately relevant to us, it becomes relevant when we get to the next chapter, in 24. In fact, this story kind of happens in two halves. We're going over the first half today in our sermon this morning. But what does Isaac need, right? We're able to see Isaac's kind of amazing faithfulness, or God's amazing faithfulness, in giving birth to Isaac and providing Abraham a child. We're able to see Abraham even being willing to sacrifice Isaac and seeing Isaac redeemed. But in order for Isaac to have kids, Isaac needs a wife. He needs to be able to bear children. In order for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham to have a multitude of offspring, he needs to be able to have kids. At the end of chapter 22, after 25 years, after his long journey of faithfulness, we see God putting the pieces in place to be able to answer that exact need. While Abraham's going on his own journey of faithfulness, God has already been at work weaving together the tapestry of his own providence over the cosmos.

Abraham doesn't have to worry or wonder about whether Isaac will end up with a Canaanite because the Lord provides a potential daughter-in-law in Rebekah. And Abraham finds this out after 11 chapters of God's faithfulness; he just hears about this. Now, notice that the genealogy is different than other genealogies. Other genealogies act kind of like there's an objective narrator, kind of like in a movie that says, 'Sarah felt strange.' You know, that's kind of how genealogies read as you read the book of Genesis. That's not what happens at the end of chapter 22. It's not a bird's-eye view; it's a view from the ground. It says here in verse 20 that Abraham was told. In other words, all this stuff happened, and Abraham had nothing to do with it. In fact, there's nothing he could do about it. He doesn't even hear or find out about all this stuff that happened until after it happened. For the last few weeks, we've been able to see from God's word that the comprehension, full understanding of all that God's doing, is not a prerequisite to obeying God. That if God gives you a clear command, you're supposed to follow after him. That when faced with uncertainty and a choice between obedience and disobedience, you should always choose to follow the Lord. Don't focus on the things that you don't know; focus on what you do know. Chapter 22 shows us the comforting other side of that coin, not about what we should do, but about what God does for you and me.

While we struggle to obey the Lord, while our view, our scope of all that the Lord is doing in our life is foggy, murky, unclear, chaotic, God is still orchestrating all things together for the good of those who love him. John Piper would say that God is at work in a million ways throughout this last week. And we are often privy to maybe one of those things. And Abraham spent so much of his life concerned about so many things. When you think about all the things that Abraham went through in the last several months, isn't it just chaotic? The panic of wanting to provide a place for himself, of trying to bear children. He knew God's promise to have a people, a place, and power, but he was preoccupied with trying to map out exactly how God was going to do that. He wanted God to be like a GPS, turning 'in 300 feet.' And that pressure pushed Abraham to do some foolish things. He was willing to compromise God's promises in exchange for worldly guarantees. But the reality is Abraham had nothing to worry about. God was at work. Not only was God at work in accomplishing his purposes in providing Abraham a son, but he was orchestrating the whole world together in order to provide Abraham's son a wife, something that he probably didn't even think about until his son was born and his son was grown.

Are you tempted to try to control providence, to map out exactly what the future will look like, to take your hands and control what will inevitably be out of your control? If you try to use your power, your money, your time to seize the future and morph it into what you want it to look like, you will find that nothing changes. In fact, if you read the story of Abraham, often things get worse. And while we panic and frantically pace back and forth between work and worry, the Lord is in the background, weaving together all things for the good of those who love him. Verse 24, we see that generation after generation ultimately leads to Rebekah, Isaac's wife. And even while Abraham was preoccupied with other things, God was accomplishing his purposes. I don't know what's going on in your life. I know what's going on in some of your lives. What I do know is that while we're preoccupied with whatever worries are immediately in front of us, our God is at work in ways that we will never know, in ways that we will never understand, in ways that we may never be privileged to know about in this life. Do you trust that the Lord is at work even when you don't see it? Do you believe that God is at work right now? When you feel like the world is falling apart, are you sure of that? Let's be people who trust in the providence of God, that don't bank our confidence in our own ability or our own plans or our own kind of perception or clairvoyance into the future. But people that know that God is at work even when dark providences cloud our lives.

God's Work Even in Death

Which brings us to point number two: God's work in death. Read verses 1 through 2 in chapter 23 with me.

Now Sarah lived 127 years; these were all the years of her life. Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. — Genesis 23:1-2 (CSB)

Sarah has come to the end of her life. She has died. And it's been a while since we've seen a main character die in Genesis. I mean, in Genesis 1-11, we were able to see kind of this pattern of life, death, and hope happening over and over again, these cycles. And when you hit Genesis 12, the story starts to slow down a bit. It zooms in on the life of Abraham. We, instead of seeing the entire cosmos created and then destroyed and then started again over the course of 10 chapters, we spent 10 chapters over one man. We almost forget this cycle that the book sets up. Decades of God's faithfulness. And yet, this incredible hope of 'seed,' this promise of offspring that Abraham gets, this new life that's just entered the world, is immediately contrasted with the dark bite of death as it takes its toll on yet another person. And Sarah, even though she is the mother of this seed, is no exception to the rule. Sarah lived, she gave birth, and then Sarah died.

Matt McCulla, in his book *Remember Death*, says that death is the inevitable end of every human life. People don't die because medicine failed them; they die because they're human. I don't know what number of years you will live; I do know that that number is finite. It's limited, and it's inevitable. And if death is inevitable, so is grief. Abraham goes in to the place where Sarah died to mourn for Sarah, to weep. This is a human moment, a fitting moment, because death isn't just inevitable; it's also wrong. It's the result of sin and corruption of a world that God created to be good. Because sin has corrupted this world, because sin has corrupted our hearts, all of us will die. And if death is inevitable, that means grief will always be appropriate. Death can almost seem like an antithesis to providence, this counterargument that has its deafening final blow on the life of Sarah, the closing chapter to a life unfulfilled. I mean, you think about all the promises that God gave to Abraham and Sarah, of all the nations being blessed through him. It can almost seem like these promises weren't kept to the end. I mean, how can you trust the Lord's providence when death makes its move? Sarah dies with nothing: no land, one kid, insignificant presence. Can you really be sure that God is going to be at work in a life like that?

Abraham's Negotiation and God's Promises of Land

For Abraham, his grief and his hope shifts his focus from his weeping to a negotiation. You see that in verse 3. When Abraham got up from beside his dead wife, he spoke to the Hethites: 'I am an alien residing among you. Give me burial property among you so that I can bury my dead.' The Hethites replied to Abraham, 'Listen to us, my lord. You are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in our finest burial place. None of us will withhold from you his burial place for burying your dead.' Abraham gets up to do the next thing. As those of us who have had loved ones pass know, there are absolutely things to grieve. You need space to be able to weep over what's lost. And you also know, man, death is so busy. There's paperwork that needs to be done. There are arrangements, right? I remember having a conversation with someone about buying a coffin at Costco. You just don't expect that you'd be working through logistics like that when it comes to death. But in Abraham's case, it's finding a burial place for Sarah. So he goes to the Hethites and he asks for property, a place where he could bury Sarah. And the Hethites respond by telling him, 'Bury your dead wherever you'd like.'

Now, this is different than when Abraham was fighting with the locals over the land, over a well, when he was talking about how it's actually his well and how he should be able to use it. In this case, it seems to show Abraham and the Hethites going out of their way to show each other extra amounts of honor. It's very deferential speech that's going on. But the Hethites' offer to Abraham isn't quite what he's asking. I wonder if you notice that there was a difference while we read this passage in terms of the way that they talk. I mean, on one hand, they are extremely respectful. You see the words that they use to describe Abraham: they call him 'Lord' and a 'prince.' That's honorific language. And at the same time, the emphasis is on the generosity that the Hethites are going to show Abraham. Right? 'Listen to us. You are a prince among us. Bury your dead in our finest burial place.' In other words, the Hethites view this as an opportunity for them to bless Abraham, to show him honor. But there's a problem. And you'll only understand this problem if you understand and paid attention to all of your Bible's genealogies, because Heth isn't just a random name that kind of pops onto the scene in Genesis chapter 23. Heth has significance because Heth is a son of Canaan. That sounds like a great bit of Bible trivia; you might be able to pass Bible Jeopardy at a church retreat someday, but it carries more significance than that.

Genesis 9, when Noah blesses his kids, tells them that Canaan is supposed to be Shem's slave. In other words, one brother is supposed to be in service to another brother. And Shem's genealogy, if you follow it, leads up to Abraham. And Canaan's son Heth leads to the Hethites. In this case, in chapter 23, we're actually seeing a reversal of what Noah said would happen. Canaan is the one who's now playing the master, the benevolent, rich ruler who's able to do a favor for Abraham. I mean, if you have ever hung out with Asians, especially my Asian parents, I mean, go out to dinner and you see those parents fight over the bill. Partially it's because they really love the other person. But sometimes you paying for the bill means you're above the person who's not paying the bill. In this case, we're seeing that reversal play out again. If death is a reversal of God's original plan in creation, this offer from the Hethites is like a reversal of God's promises. In Genesis 9, Canaan's supposed to be Shem's slave. And now Canaan is trying to son Shem. The son of Shem has to go before the son of Canaan to negotiate a burial plot. 'Yeah, we'll help you.'

Not only that, the Hethites are also switching up their language in their conversation with Abraham. Notice that Abraham's asking for burial property, but the Hethites offer him any of their burial places. The difference is so slight you could almost miss it. Abraham is asking for property. The Hethites offer Abraham a burial plot. In other words, that's not what Abraham actually wants. He wants a land deed. He wants a place that he could call his own, a property, a possession. In other words, this isn't a gentle, kind, outdoing one another and showing honor kind of conversation because there's a conversation and then there's the conversation underneath the conversation. What's happening in this conversation is not about generosity. This is a negotiation. The next phase of the negotiation happens in verse 7.

The Strategic Purchase of the Promised Land

Then Abraham rose and bowed down to the Hethites, the people of the land. He said to them, “If you are willing for me to bury my dead, listen to me and ask Ephron son of Zohar on my behalf to give me the cave of Machpelah that belongs to him; it is at the end of his field. Let him give it to me in your presence, for the full price, as burial property.” Ephron was sitting among the Hethites. So in the hearing of all the Hethites who came to the gate of his city, Ephron the Hethite answered Abraham: “No, my lord. Listen to me. I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. I give it to you in the sight of my people. Bury your dead.” — Genesis 23:7-11 (CSB)

Abraham rises and bows to the people of the land. Notice how the way that the story describes Abraham seems to emphasize the fact that this guy is homeless. He has no property. He even identifies himself earlier as an alien in the land. And he's speaking to the people that are of the land because you know who doesn't have any land? Abraham. He doesn't have anything. So he recognizes this power dynamic between himself and the Hethites. So he bows down in front of them and he makes his request: 'Let me buy the cave that belongs to Ephron,' and he emphasizes his desire to pay the full price for the property, this land. And Ephron tells him, 'No, my lord. I give it to you and with a field around it.' I mean, what a deal, right? What a nice guy. He's not just giving Abraham the cave; he's giving him the field. That's extravagant generosity, right? Don't be so sure. You always have honorific negotiations that happen in cultures like this. This happens a lot in a Korean household. If you want to make sure that someone actually wants something, you have to offer it to them multiple times, because you know what happens the first time you offer someone fruit? They say no, because they're not supposed to look eager in accepting your gift. And so what you do is you offer it again. Sometimes you offer it three times before you're really able to figure out what they actually want. It's part of the culture. And what happens with friends of mine that move out of California and end up going to school somewhere out of state in a more Westernized culture, they go to someone's house and they offer them something, and they say no the first time, and then that American goes, 'Okay, I guess they don't want it,' and the Korean ends up hungry and maybe slightly upset.

Ephron knows exactly what he's doing here. He's following the cultural code to a T. He is saying all of the right things. I mean, his community just offered Abraham a burial place for free, so he's not going to look like a greedy guy who's grubbing around trying to get as much property for himself. He's trying to show Abraham honor by following up the same way that his community decided to do it. Like a funeral home that offers you their condolences while simultaneously trying to earn your business. Ephron is showing appropriate honor to Abraham, but he does intend a sale. Allow me to translate what Ephron's saying here. See, it'll get more obvious later, but including the field with the cave isn't him being generous. It's actually him being strategic. In the same way that you and I wouldn't just sell a shed in your backyard or an ADU on your property, there are clear parcels of land that you sell all at once, sections that you would give away if you're posting it up on Zillow. In the same way, Ephron isn't just offering the cave, he's offering the field around it. It's not because Ephron is interested in increasing his generosity; it's because that's the section of land that you give when you're trying to sell the thing. If you're not sure whether or not Ephron's just trying to be generous, just keep reading. Look at verse 12.

Abraham bowed down to the people of the land and said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, “Listen to me, if you please. Let me pay the price of the field. Accept it from me, and let me bury my dead there.” Ephron answered Abraham and said to him, “My lord, listen to me. Land worth four hundred shekels of silver—what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.” Abraham agreed with Ephron, and Abraham weighed out to Ephron the silver that he had agreed to in the hearing of the Hethites: four hundred standard shekels of silver. So Ephron’s field at Machpelah near Mamre—the field with its cave and all the trees anywhere within the boundaries of the field—became Abraham’s possession in the sight of all the Hethites who came to the gate of his city. After this, Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave of the field at Machpelah near Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. The field with its cave passed from the Hethites to Abraham as burial property. — Genesis 23:12-20 (CSB)

Imagine that. Throws out a gargantuan number, and Abraham says yes right away. And he pays out the exact right amount in front of everyone. The land belongs to him. In fact, the way that the story reads, it's almost like showing this deal happening from multiple angles. Abraham's measuring out exactly 400 shekels of silver. He receives a field and everything in it. And the field passes from the Hethites to Abraham as property in the sight of everyone there. In other words, Abraham received the land. Abraham received the land. Abraham received the land. And in a singular moment, Abraham goes from being a sojourner, a resident alien in a foreign land, to a deed-carrying landowner. He is not an alien anymore. He is a citizen, and he has a right to this property.

And you may think, why in the world would you dedicate an entire chapter of the Bible for that? Why get caught up in all the details of this kind of negotiation? But don't be so sure. If you're an Israelite wandering the wilderness before you enter the promised land, you would find this seemingly asinine story about Abraham and the Hethites riveting. Because this story means that the land that they are headed towards, as they are wandering the wilderness, as Moses is writing out their history back to them, the land that they are going to is not stolen land. It was land that they purchased. They have divine right by God's blessing, and they have literal property rights. 'Pull out that parchment. Show it to them. It belongs to me.' In a life full of uncertainty where they had to live years in Egypt's chains, then through the Red Sea, then wandering through the wilderness for decades, they had cashed in all of their chips in the hope of a land that God had promised to them. And this grave is a down payment. It's a sign that when God promises something, it is a sure thing. God is going to give you a people, a place, and power. And it's exactly here, in the setting of the deafening closure, the tragedy of Sarah's death, that God is able to take that in order to demonstrate his providential purposes. Sarah believed in that promise even unto death.

The Certainty of God's Promises in Christ

Do you have that kind of faith? Are you really sure that God is going to work all things together for your good? Are you sure that God is capable of weaving together all things for the good of those who love him? Are you sure that Jesus will establish his heavenly city, build a place for us, and call us home? Are you sure that God will accomplish all of his promises that he's given to his children? The only way that you and I can be sure is if you remember his promises and if you remember all of the examples in which God fulfills them in the life of his people. I mean, look at what God has done here in Genesis chapter 23. God has demonstrated his faithfulness all throughout the life of Sarah. And he never went back on his word, not even once. And what greater example do we have of that kind of faith, that kind of good news, kind of faith that we could bank all of our hopes on? Than the example of our Savior Jesus Christ, the true son of Abraham, who stills the storms of uncertainty in our hearts by demonstrating his love for us by taking the penalty of sin on his shoulders on the cross. Who conquered death through his own death, who was buried in the grave and then rose from the dead three days later in imperishable resurrection life. Are you sure that God is going to pull through in your life? Not just with the things that stress you out day-to-day, but with your sin, with the uncertainties that life brings, even with the finality of death itself.

For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in him. Therefore, through him we also say “Amen” to the glory of God. — 2 Corinthians 1:20 (CSB)

That you can be sure that God will fulfill all of his promises. You can be sure that God is preparing a place for his people that is full of perfect rest, that God is gathering for himself a people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. And you can be sure that God will shower unending grace and blessing on you for all of eternity. This isn't just something that you can hope in, some kind of distant 'I hope things work out eventually.' This is something that you can be sure about. If you need encouragement to remember that God will follow all of his promises, follow the track record of God's people all throughout the Bible. Person after person, facing all sorts of uncertainty, sin, failure, hopelessness, and God pulls through for them all, even in the life of Sarah.

These all died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised. But they saw them from a distance, greeted them, and confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth. Now those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they were thinking about where they came from, they would have had an opportunity to return. But they now desire a better place—a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. — Hebrews 11:13-16 (CSB)

Sarah never saw her promises fulfilled. She never saw the great nation. She never even got to see a land deed. She never saw the nations gathered together, blessed through her line. But she died in faith. She died as a foreigner headed to a greater city, to a city of a God who always keeps his promises. You may never see your dreams fulfilled in this life. You could toil all day. Some of you may be looking back on your life now with more regrets than you do gratitude. Let me encourage you. No matter what life may have brought, no matter what life will bring, you and I are headed for something better, something far greater than anything that this world can offer us. While we're busy trying to assemble for ourselves some semblance of a shack of safety in this life, God wants you to know that even your grave is merely the doorway into the promised city that God has prepared for us. You are destined for something better, something greater. And you can be sure of that. And what better way to remember that God always keeps his promises than the Lord's Supper? To be able to look back at the climactic fulfillment of all of God's promises on the cross and to look forward to this final culmination of all of God's promises in the marriage supper of the Lamb. The promise that was given to us that all who come in faith will find forgiveness, joy, real rest at the cross. Let's pray.

We do pray that you would help us to have confidence in you. Not to find any certainty in our own abilities, our own might, even in our own circumstances, but that we would willingly give up our control if it means that we can have you. Pray that you would help us to be sure of all the ways that you are at work in our lives and that you would work all things together for the good of those who love you, that you would bring us safely home. We can only do that by your grace. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.