The Trouble with Overthinking

I like Abraham a lot.

He’s a man of faith but he’s not perfect.

He takes a jump of faith into the unknown, but then drops the ball when he agrees with his wife Sarah’s plan to have a baby with the maid. That never works out well. Just ask Arnold.

As if that wasn’t dumb enough, Abraham is one of those guys who seems to also have trouble learning from his own mistakes.

In Genesis 12 – right after God calls Abraham – a famine hits the land. Without getting God’s opinion, Abraham runs to Egypt to hide. In a self preservation kind of move, he lies to everyone including the king and claims that Sarah is his sister and not his wife.

Why would he do that?

Good question. He claims that she was so pretty the guys would kill him to get her.

Uh, guys, even if you mean well, I wouldn’t recommend using that technique to compliment a woman.

Be that as it may, God protects Abraham and Sarah and the story ends well.

Now let’s fast forward and pick up the second act in Abraham’s imperfect play.

It’s several years and many conversations with God later. You would think Abraham is older, wiser, smarter.

But you get to Genesis 20 and you quickly figure out: He’s not!! He’s exactly like you and I are. It doesn’t matter what God has told us or how much He’s done for us in the past, we remain the same obtuse faithless self relying scaredy cats Abraham shows himself to be .

In Genesis 20, Abraham journeys towards the Negeb desert and repeats his exact same move. He lies to another king and claims that Sarah is his sister.

Wait…did I miss something Abraham? Haven’t you been here before? Haven’t you learned anything by now?

Yet once again God in his mercy protects Abraham and Sarah and saves their marriage.

King Abimelech is perplexed. Why would Abraham do something like that? So he asks him.

And here’s what Abraham says in Genesis 20:11.

“I did it because I thought…”

You wanna make sure your faith fails? Stop believing and start thinking. Stop trusting and start manipulating. Stop resting and start trying.

Why don’t you consider this instead: Stop thinking and start trusting.

Rest in God’s promises even when it doesn’t make sense.

Rest in His promises even when you feel afraid.

Rest in His promises especially when you feel afraid.

You won’t regret it.

And you’ll save yourself much trouble.

Instead of saying “I did it because I thought”, how about learning to say:

“I did it because God said”.

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