You may be reading this
post for no other reason than the title.
They are interesting words for sure.
They may not mean much to you and me, but to Abram they meant the world.  In Genesis Chapter 15 we read the following
interaction between God and Abram:

“After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram  in a vision:

“Do not be afraid,  Abram.
    I
am your shield
    your
very great reward.”

But
Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my
estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You
have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir,
but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the
sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So
shall your offspring be.”

 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of
it.”

But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

In this passage of the story God is revisiting
Abram and He once again is promising to bless Abram.  Abram who is still childless, though years
before God promised to bless him with children, begins to bargain with
God.  But God makes it clear that He is
the one in charge and powerful enough to bring about His promises.  In verse one He says “I am your shield.”  This word for shield actually means
“sovereign”.  God is saying I am in
charge, I, and I alone, am God. 

Then why was Abram so excited that God asked
him to get a heifer, a ram, a goat, a dove and a pigeon?  Because Abram knew that God was preparing for
a covenant ritual.  Abram was from a
covenant culture and he knew the process.

A covenant was not just a promise or a
friendship.  It was not a business deal
or an agreement, no it was an act of grace.
You see a covenant was usually entered not by people on equal terms, but
people who were very unevenly matched, a greater and a lesser, a strong person
and a weak person, a rich person and a poor person.  The covenant made the two parties, not only
equal, but in a sense one.

Listen to what Pastor and author Mike Breen
says about this:

“Now, it’s a Covenant making society, a Covenant making culture. So when people
heard this for the first time they understood what was going on. They
understood that there were two leaders. There was a greater leader and a lesser
leader, but both represented the identities of those whom they represented. And
the greater leader confers by grace, upon the lesser leader, the capacity to
come into relationship. You see, here is the greater conferring upon the lesser
a relationship. Here is the stronger conferring upon the lesser the right to
relationship. So Covenant has always been crafted in grace. It’s always required the initiative of the great one. It’s always required the initiative of the strong. And God, the strong one,
confers grace upon the weak Abram, the right to relationship.

But there’s more than that. It’s not the relationship that
a slave would have with his master. It’s not even a
servant who is free to do their own kind of stuff. It’s not an employee. It’s the relationship of
oneness. And the best way we can express that is in family language. They

become one. God confers
upon Abram this astonishing gift which is that he is now one with God and can
meet God eye to eye and though God remains the greater and the stronger and can
speak to God as if he were one. Isn’t that
amazing? It’s absolutely astonishing.”

This Covenant that God initiates with Abram is
a gracious and sovereign act.  This is a
major part of God’s Upper Story.  In my
next post I will deal with what this means to us in our Lower Story.