When the Lord called Abram, He called him to do something that was extraordinary. He called him to believe something to be reality when he could not, at that moment, see it. Why? Why would the Lord command such a thing from a mere mortal? Why does He still command such extraordinary belief of His people today? One answer is simply that He is the Lord and He can do and command whatever He chooses and we, created by Him, are obliged to obey. That's one answer. Yet, there is another that is a reflection of His grace and compassion for us.
Believing what we cannot see goes against every human instinct within us. We have lived by the mantra, "seeing is believing" and or "the proof is in the pudding", etc. Both phrases are indicative of the fact that, for humanity, the proof of something is always visible. We cannot believe what we do not see. Yet, the Lord calls us to life above mere humanity. He invites us to believe what we cannot see because He is working in us an even greater faith in Himself. Here is the power of specific prayer: they are prayers for the extraordinary which become the seed for seeing the extraordinary and ever and, thereby, increasing our faith.
There it is. Specific prayers comes from those who believe for the extraordinary and, because of this belief they see the extraordinary and their faith is increased. The Lord invites us to pray specifically as a sovereign design to grow our faith in Him. Abraham's servant, having seen the Lord do the amazing and answer his prayer, said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master. As for me, the Lord has led me in the way to the house of my master’s kinsmen” (Genesis 24:27).
Beneath these words is a strengthened confidence in the Lord because He answered his prayer exactly as the servant had prayed. He praises the Lord for His steadfast love (His never ending love) and faithfulness (He always keeps His promises) towards Abraham. Get that. His confidence in the Lord was strengthened because of the Lord's faithfulness to Abraham, not himself. It is not that the lord was not faithful to the servant but the servant sees the Lord's blessing as being rooted in His covenant promise to Abraham, the father of the faithful.
As a result the servant saw the Lord in a way that was different than before. It is not that God changed or became larger than before, but this man's faith to pray specifically granted him the ability to see God with refreshed eyes and a new found faith. This is why we are privy to what he said in verse 27 above. The verse shows us that his praise of the Lord flowed out of a newfound sight or Him as well as an increased faith, trust and confidence in the Lord.
The Lord may be challenging you to pray and believe for something extraordinary. It may be beyond your mental capacity to comprehend how such a thing could happen. You cannot find anything within or without to see how such a thing could come to pass. But you have the Lord, and for the servant, whatever he could believe about the Lord caused Him to believe that the Lord could work it out. This story is for us. It is a story given to compel us to believe that our God is still doing the extraordinary and reminding us that we can believe Him for whatever He is prompting us to ask of Him. This is the calling to us today.
When you move in faith God will answer and the answer will increase your faith. It increases because faith is the souls's sight of God and His work for His people. In some ways it is like working out. When you consistently workout you build endurance by pushing yourself more and more each time. Faith is the same way. Every challenge to us must be seen as an opportunity to exercise trust in theLord and, consequently, to see Him more clearly. The clearer we see Him the more we are willing to trust Him. Seeing Him, however, demands, that we first act out our faith.
The servant believed the Lord could do the extraordinary. As a result, he saw the extraordinary and his faith, love and trust in the Lord increased. Our growth in the Lord depends on the stewardship of (the acting out) our current level of faith for the impossible. He will never ask of us what He has not already provided us the faith capacity to believe.