Tell the Truth the Second Time

Genesis 20 is uncomfortable to read because we have read it before. Abraham moves to Gerar, tells everyone Sarah is his sister, and King Abimelech takes her. It is the same scheme he used in Egypt in chapter 12, and Sarah is now nearly ninety and pregnant with the promised child, or about to be. God intervenes in a dream, Abimelech protests his innocence, and Abraham offers a rambling explanation: she really is my half-sister, and I asked her to do this everywhere we go. Everywhere. It was not a lapse; it was a policy.

The life lesson is about the sins we have decided to keep. Most of us have one or two, a habit of shading the truth in a certain situation, a way of handling money or anger or fear that we adopted years ago and have never revisited. We confessed it once, perhaps, but we did not dismantle the policy behind it.

Abraham's God was patient with him, and rescued Sarah, and even had Abraham pray for Abimelech's household. But the pattern cost him his credibility with a pagan king, who came out of the story looking more honest than the patriarch.

This week, find your Gerar. Ask what fear you have built a standing arrangement around. Then tell the truth the second time, where you failed to tell it the first.