From God Didn’t Create Robots: Commonsense Christian Apologetics

If we are looking for convincing evidence to differentiate the biblical narrative stories of faith…from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…to make the case that these biblical life-scripts could not be the product of human literary invention…another telling argument in this direction is the diametric opposites of our ways versus God’s ways as depicted in the biblical narrative stories of faith.

Anyone who follows the biblical God deep enough into their adventure of faith eventually runs experientially into the jarring realization, at some point in time, that we want to do things…even the big things like the fulfillment of the supernatural promises of God in our lives…our way.

This is one of the fundamental aspects of the Bible that creates a clearly delineated fork-in-the-road…a radical departure…away from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking.

This is an aspect in our Christian discipleship that takes us on a unique journey far from conventional thinking and norms.

Abraham naturally has his own ideas about how he will become the father of descendants as numerous as the stars in the night sky…and his ideas do not include waiting 25 years for the birth of Isaac…the son of promise.

This important piece of information God left out of the initial calling of Abraham…for the best and highest reason imaginable…to set up the unique context for biblical faith…to actualize.

According to contemporary Christian jargon…doing something our way outside of the council or participation of God…is popularly called an “Ishmael”…doomed to failure.

Abraham and Sarah trying to help-out God in fulfilling God’s plans and promise…by bringing Hagar into the picture and thus producing Ishmael…actually goes against-the-grain of the best and highest outcome in this Abraham storyline…in at least two ways.

First, the main goal…the outcome that the life-script of Abraham hones-in on…is not the start of a large family-life according to worldly expectations and aspirations…but rather for Abraham to become the “father of faith”…of biblical faith that by commonsense definition requires elements of patience, trust, and faith.

But faith and trust in who and in what? Not in himself…not in his plans…not in his ideas…not in self-realization and self-reliance. This is the dividing point…the departure…away from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…that is unique to the Bible.

Certainly the God-composed life-script for Abraham and Sarah could have had Sarah becoming pregnant soon after their arrival in Canaan…with several children following thereafter…producing a conventionally normal family life…in which it could be said of Abraham and Sarah: “and they lived happily forever after.”

But this is not the life-script for Abraham and Sarah. Normal marital relations are not working. The promised descendants…as numerous as the stars in the night sky…are nowhere in sight.

This is where the second main theme of the story comes into play. In a God-composed journey of faith life-script…God writes into the plotline of events and circumstances a dependence upon Himself…that has an outcome…a goal…that requires supernatural intervention…every time throughout the Bible.

This is the point where our ways and God’s ways divide. This is where self-sovereignty separates from God-sovereignty. This is where the biblical narrative stories of faith depart from worldly conventional normalcy and thinking.

This is one of the compelling reasons why the biblical narrative stories of faith could not possibly come from human literary invention.

Bluntly stated…we want the promises of God to be fulfilled in our lives…our way according to worldly conventionality…and they can’t be if they are to have any eternal value.

This rude and shocking reality is not only for our eternal benefit…but also for the benefit of others as God works out His plans through us to unselfishly minister to other people…as in the case of Abraham and Sarah…to produce physical and spiritual descendants…in fact as precisely promised by God…as numerous as the stars in the night sky.

Abraham and Sarah simply cannot produce Isaac…by themselves…according to conventional norms and thinking…on their own. This is by purposeful design. Like it or not, they need help from God.

A journey of faith composed by God will have this difficult and frustrating element…downright annoying at times according to our horizontally conventional thinking…of dependence upon God…involving some goal or outcome beyond our reach…usually beyond our initial imagination as we begin our faith journey…that requires God-sovereignty rather than self-sovereignty…to actualize and bring these outcomes into empirical reality.