The original "It Gets Better" message

Genesis 17:1-8

           I think you could easily make an argument that this is the original "it gets better" message from God.  Whether or not you take all of this passage literally (that Abraham was 91 years old for instance), you have to ask if this is simply a historical passage or what?

            Ninety-one is a good old age by anyone's standards.  If I was 91, I would certainly think that my days on this plane of existence would be short lived. But when Abram might be more prone to looking back at his life perhaps with sadness for lack of a single child, God reveals the exact opposite plan for him. Fullness of life and the prospects of a great family line. That would have been an extra special blessing to Abram as simple survival was a challenge. 

            Anyone who has suffered in any way for any length of time might ask "is this all there is"? just as Abram may have. For a tormented gay youth the future looks rather bleak. The trauma and the brutality of life seems ever present and the prospects for a happy future seem as distant as the stars in the sky.

            This passage lets us know, almost from the get go of Holy Scripture that God so loves us that he will give us anything. We may have to wait a bit but the future is bright. While happiness at a given moment may seem as far away as the stars, the extent of our happiness will be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  We should always have faith in that. It does get better.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.’ Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.’