The eyes adjust to the light or darkness around them, capture images and identify beauty, colors and distance. But they have more than this physical capacity and, therefore, the Lord Jesus warned: ““The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! ” (Matthew 6:22-23). This warning is corroborated throughout the Sacred Text.

In Genesis 3, we read that Eve saw that the Tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden was good for eating and then disobeyed God’s only command and caused Adam to do the same, so that the eyes of both were opened to their own weaknesses. Thus, sin entered Humanity and, with it, death.

In a land of equals…

With the multiplication of human beings, human corruption also expanded, as did the distance between them and God, wickedness and idolatry. The entire Earth was suffering and the city of Haran (currently located in southeastern Turkey) was no different. There, sin and idolatry spread among the people who had not even heard of the Creator – let alone were sensitive to his Voice. In fact, any similarity with the present day is not a mere coincidence, although in Haran someone differed.

…a different man

He was someone who dreamed of becoming a father and could if he had another wife, but who chose to be faithful to a sterile woman. Therefore, it is to be assumed that he was also honest, upright, fair and so exceptional that he stood out in the eyes of God. That man was Abram. In the book “The Faith of Abraham”, Bishop Edir Macedo explains that “even though he lived in a pagan land, where promiscuity was a reason for worship and praise to the gods, Abraham remained faithful to his only wife. (…). Surely God saw that if Abraham could be faithful to his wife, even though she was barren, she would also be faithful to Him, as a servant!

Without hesitation, he accepted God’s call, believed in His promises (Genesis 12), left everything behind and left without a map and without proof that God was real or guarantees that such promises would come true. “We can admire the greatness of faith and its results in the life of Abraham during his one hundred years of communion with God, but we cannot forget that his first attitude towards the Lord was his unrestricted obedience, when he left his land, his relatives and his home. of his father”, quoted the Bishop.

Example to be followed

Years of faithfulness passed and Abram prospered greatly, but his dream of having a son and the promise of being the father of a great nation did not come true. Over time, hopelessness came, because even though he had God as a shield and a very great reward, his steward, the Damascene Eliezer, was the one who would be his heir (Genesis 15.1-3). It was when, after Abram asked God this question, a singular moment happened. God invited him to leave his tent to reveal that the dream he dreamed of was small compared to what the Lord had prepared and, thus, He encouraged him, telling him “look now at the heavens, and count the stars, if you can. count” and the Almighty soon reminded him that “so will your descendants be” (Genesis 15.5). Looking at the heavens, finally, “he believed in the Lord, and counted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).

How many people yearn for something that, to human eyes, seems impossible to achieve? There are those who try hard to find a way or live bitterly because they never get what they want, but there are also those who see beyond this physical world, just like Abram. All he had was a promise and a vision of the starry sky and yet he remained walking in the Presence of the Almighty and being perfect, until the Lord made a covenant with him and changed his name to Abraham (Genesis 17.1-10).

There were 25 years of unrestricted obedience to God from his departure from Haran until Sarah conceived Isaac and Abraham saw his dream materialized in her lap (Genesis 21.1-5). “It is always good to remember Abraham as a symbol of perseverance and patience, which naturally characterized his genuine faith. He believed against natural circumstances, as Sarah was sterile and, furthermore, her time to be a mother had already passed. That is to say: he believed when everything seemed completely lost”, wrote the Bishop.

It is not for nothing that we read in Isaiah 51:2: “Look to Abraham your father, And to Sarah who bore you; For I called him alone, And blessed him and increased him.” In the Bible with Bishop Edir Macedo’s Notes on Faith, we are reminded that “when the patriarch was chosen, he was just one (Ezekiel 33.24). Furthermore, it was impossible for him to generate a people, because Sarah, his wife, was sterile. The modest beginnings of this couple, who conceived their son in old age (Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90), and their persevering obedience made them both become a reference for all generations. Abraham and Sarah became parents not only of Israel, but of all those who believe in the Word of God (Romans 4.16-22). Imitating his faith and confidence in times of adversity generates strength and testimony forever.” This Abrahamic faith is the true faith. A faith capable of realizing not only personal dreams, but, mainly, the means to achieve Salvation.

Stopping looking at failures

“My family is marked by financial bankruptcy, from my father to all six children. Even with 28 years of ‘Christian faith’, I faced three bankruptcies”, says businesswoman Wanderlene da Silva, (photo below) aged 55. She reports that her love life followed the same path: “I had three failed relationships. My big dream was to start a family and, to that end, I got married at 18 and at 22 I was already separating for the first time, with a 4-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old daughter.”

Initially, she attended a denomination that paid for her Theology seminary, as she wanted to “fulfill missions”. However, she suffered from deep depression, nighttime disturbances, nightmares and wanted to abandon her daughters. That’s how she arrived at Universal in 2000, she soon freed herself, was cured and was consecrated as a volunteer worker. “In 2008, I got married and eight years later we were getting divorced because of cheating. With the end of my second marriage and feeling very bad spiritually, I left the Work of God to have a relationship with an unbeliever,” she says.

She was still at Universal, but she was blind. “I had resentment and mortal hatred for my ex-husband, I got involved in debts with loan sharks and I had disagreements with my daughters. I even told God that not even I could stand myself, I had become so bitter. I blamed everyone for my failures and exempted myself from blame. I thought I had the Holy Spirit, but I wasn’t even born of God. My spiritual condition over these years showed that everything I experienced was religiosity, but I only saw this through the Word of God listening to the Messages of a Bishop”, she reports. This Word made her recognize her condition and the sanctity of the Altar. She always participated in the Campaign of Faith and even obtained material blessings, but they did not last. “The Altar is Holy, therefore, the sacrifice needs to be sanctified, but how could that be, if my heart was hurt and shredded with frustrations and resentments?”, she reflects. It was when she looked only at the Altar and obeyed God’s call, sacrificed her relationship, She did everything God asked of her and sought the real baptism with the Holy Spirit.

“My ‘birth’ took 24 years! I asked God the reason for that pain and He showed me that my ‘house’ had been built with pride, arrogance, selfishness, guesswork, resentment, hurt and that it was being demolished. But I wanted to give myself to Him! I felt so thirsty for the Holy Spirit that I wanted to enter in Him until I could feel that there were the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together generating a new creature in me! Then came a joy, peace and I rested in my Lord like a woman who rests and rejoices after giving birth to her new child”, she explains!

Since then, her focus has been on maintaining her relationship with God and being instrumental in saving her family. She also paid off her debts and has prospered, always helping her family and being a sponsor of the Work of God. “I don’t miss anything! The Father has already given me my greatest treasure: the Holy Spirit”, She concludes.