God was teaching the descendants of Abraham that He was unique. He was special like a Father or Mother is special and should be treated with respect. God created humanity to represent Him well in the Earth but humanity gave God the finger. So God made a promise, and the story of the Bible is how He kept that promise in spite of the evil that existed everywhere. The ultimate promise given to Abraham was that “all the nations (people groups) of the world,” would be blessed through His family line. However, up to this point in the story, the family line of Abraham had been nothing but trouble. Picture evil as “grief,” or that which Good people would regret. The problem with calling “evil” just “good” and “bad” is that it is too simplistic and often just gets thought of in terms of morality. But grief implies regret.

Dysfunctional families cause unnecessary pain. There is a necessary kind of pain in life but there is also unnecessary pain. When we deeply hurt one another this should leave a sense of sadness and regret. Evil causes harm to others and in order for God to truly be loving and just He must deal with evil. In fact, the most common reason why people claim that they don’t believe in God is because of the evil and human suffering they see in the world. What they often fail to recognize is that if God instantly was to rid the world of all evil, He would have to instantly rid the world of us. Injustice exists in each of us because of our self-centered natures. God has a better way to deal with evil but it requires us to be patient and participate in the process.

The promise of God to Abraham was setting in motion a plan to deal with evil without having destroy us in the process. Anyone willing to acknowledge this plan and humble themselves before God would come to understand how the plan would work. We are all inspired when we see people sacrifice for others out of love. Sacrifice is one of the key themes God uses throughout the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures to teach evil people (us) what love and goodness looks like. But how does He go about that?