Daily EncouragementSample

There was famine in the promised land to which Abram had been called and into which he had entered by faith. We might expect that “milk and honey” rather than severe famine would have been the order of the day. Not so, for men of faith are not immune to the common trials of life. Older pilgrims, as well as new converts, need reminding that: “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). “Abram went down to Egypt . . . ”; it was surely a retrograde step, however sensible it may have appeared from a natural viewpoint. It would have been better to walk by faith in the famine but, as Joseph Parker has commented, “Abram could trust a whole destiny to the Lord, but not a particular circumstance in the process.” “But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household” (Gen. 12:17). So God cares for his own, even when they go down to Egypt, “because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you’” (Heb. 13:5).