The promise came

After Romans 4:13-25

The promise came,

not through law

or contract, but

through faith, and

the promise depended 

on faith, believing

what had been told,

what had been promised,

no matter how improbable

or ridiculous it sounded

(the wife didn’t laugh

for no reason).

From an old man

and an old woman,

a promise was fulfilled,

a temporal promise 

of the descent of kings,

a spiritual promise

of the descent of belief,

over time and geography

and eras and culture and

politics and incomes and

power, the promise

of descendants as

countless as grains 

of sand, molded and

melded into one family,

the family of Abraham.

Photograph by Tim Mossholder via Unsplash. Used with permission.