Can you trust a promise you can’t see yet?
God told Abram to leave everything and go to a land he’d show him. Abram went. Years later, still with no children, God took him outside at night: “Count the stars, if you can. That’s how many your family will be.” Abram believed. Twenty-five years after the first promise, a baby boy was born, and his name meant “laughter.”
God told Abram to leave everything and go to a land he’d show him. Abram went. Years later, still with no children, God took him outside at night: “Count the stars, if you can. That’s how many your family will be.” Abram believed. Twenty-five years after the first promise, a baby boy was born, and his name meant “laughter.”
About 7 minutes: 4 choices and 2 ways-of-knowing stops. Kids play Abram packing up, Abram under the stars, and Sarah hearing news that makes her laugh. The story skips the parts about Hagar and Lot; the grown-ups note says where to find them.
Ages 5–10
The Bible doesn’t explain it. You can say: by the time Isaac came, nobody could say Abraham and Sarah did it themselves. The wait made the promise obviously God’s. And it’s okay to say waiting is hard; Sarah thought so too, and God still kept his word.
Genesis 12:1–9 (the call), 15:1–6 (the stars), 18:1–15 (Sarah laughs) and 21:1–7 (Isaac is born). God calls Abram at seventy-five to leave Haran for an unnamed land, promising to make him a great nation and bless all peoples through him. Childless years later, God tells him to count the stars; Abram believes, and “it was credited to him as righteousness,” a line the New Testament quotes often. God renames him Abraham and Sarai Sarah. Sarah laughs at the announcement of a son at ninety; Isaac (“he laughs”) is born a year later. We leave out Lot, Hagar and Ishmael (chapters 13, 16, 21) and the binding of Isaac (22).