This Holy Week we celebrate the promised seed of Abram. The fulfillment of the promise we have been studying all month in the life of Abram. What did Abram do to receive the promise of God? He responded to God’s call. Period.

Still, we find that along the journey Abram acts in fear rather than trust. In the face of famine, Abram offered his wife to Pharaoh to save his own skin. Turns out Abram isn’t a special human; he’s just human. So when Pharaoh gives Sarai back to him and sends him away, Abram goes back to Bethel where it all began (Genesis 13:3-4).

Surely we all go through times where it feels and looks like we need to go back to square one and start over. Perhaps this is exactly what Abram feels when he leaves Egypt and goes back to Bethel—where it all began—and calls on the name of the Lord. “God, I messed up, but I still want You. Can I start over?”

But there’s no starting over with God. When we fail, we can geographically go back to where we started, but spiritually, once we answer the call of God, our screw-ups and missteps become part of the infinite discovery process of our faithful Father. Abram may have gone back to where he started geographically, but his intimacy with God will now only grow deeper. Abram soon discovers that God’s promises do not depend on his trust or performance.

One day Abram asks God how he can know for certain that the promises will come true. In response, God enacts the customary equivalent of contract signing between two people. The way it would normally go is two people would agree to do something for one another. Animals would be cut in half and separated and the two people would walk through as a way of sealing the contract. In this case, God goes through the animal pieces by Himself. He shows him that the contract He’s made with Abram is a one-way contract and Abram has no part in its fulfillment (Genesis 15:7-21). This is the best news! In fact, we see in this scene a foreshadowing of the Gospel. And this is exactly what we celebrate this week—Holy Week.

Despite the lack of faithfulness of Abraham’s human descendants, Jesus came as God-man through the line of Abraham—Abram’s promised son—to complete the work no human could ever accomplish. And now, through Christ, we inherit all of the earth. And what do we have to do to receive it? Respond to the invitation: “[Your name here], walk away from all that you think is yours, and walk with Me to the future that I will show you.”

Will we mess up along the way? Yes. Can we still look forward to the promise of blessing? Yes, we can! Because it doesn’t depend on us. It depends on God and He finished the work on the cross at Cavalry.

If, when we mess up, we continue to go back to the place where it all started—on our knees in a rhythm of worship and repentance as Abram did—we will receive our very great reward…a deeper intimacy with God.

Have you ever experienced a time when you thought you were going back to square one? Have you asked for a do-over with God? Remember, there is no going back with God. Even when it feels like a reset, it’s just an invitation to go deeper still, to discover more of His faithfulness in spite of our faithlessness, to discover more of His goodness in the midst of our failures, to receive His promises—to receive all of Him.