Genesis 15:5
Abram was stuck under an eight-foot ceiling made of goat hair. He wasn’t literally held captive there, but functionally, he was starting to lose sight of God, who was able to do more. Inside his tent, his vision was limited to what felt possible, what he could measure, and what he could control. And for Abram, that meant one painful reality: no child, no heir, no fulfillment of God’s promise.
So God does something simple, but profound. He told Abram to “Go outside” (Genesis 15:5). That’s it. He doesn’t lecture him or argue with him. Just a relocation. One of the things that strikes me is that sometimes the problem isn’t God’s promise, it’s our perspective.
The moment Abram steps outside, everything changes. The ceiling disappears. The sky stretches endlessly above him. And God says, “Look up. Count the stars… so shall your descendants be” (Genesis 15:5). In other words, He was saying, “Stop measuring My power by your limitations.”
We do this all the time. Let me be more personal… I do this all the time. We take the infinite promises of God and shrink them down to the size of our experience. We put eight-foot ceilings on a limitless God. We assume it’s too late, too broken, too far gone. But God’s invitation is always the same: Come outside and see differently.
There’s something about getting outside, literally and spiritually, that resets us. Researchers talk about how time in nature recalibrates the brain. Stress drops, creativity rises, and our perspective widens. It should come as no surprise that Scripture has been showing us this for centuries. God meets people in wide-open spaces. Moses at a burning bush. David in the wilderness. Elijah on the mountain. Jesus in the desert.
Why? Because it’s hard to encounter a big God when your world feels small. And maybe that’s where you are right now. Maybe life has shrunk, or your vision has narrowed. Maybe your faith feels confined to what you can see and solve.
What if what you need isn’t more striving, but a change of scenery? Take a field trip on your own two feet. Step outside and lift your eyes. Really, do it! Let creation preach to you. The same God who spoke the stars into existence and calls them out each night by name (Isaiah 40:26) is still at work in your life. It’s never too little, and it’s never too late.
Abram believed God, not because his circumstances changed, but because his perspective did. So today, get out of the tent, look up, and count the stars. And remember: “He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20).
Ryan Paulson
Lead Pastor