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Knowing God’s faithfulness outweighs my weaknesses, and His grace covers my failures, shows me I can trust Him to bring good even from my mistakes.
Knowing that God is personal and relational — and that He cares deeply about His children — gives me the freedom to trust Him and to talk with Him openly and honestly about what is on my heart.
As I’ve been sitting with Genesis 24, I can’t stop thinking about what it really meant for Rebecca to water those camels. I’ve read that story so many times, but slowing down and picturing the details changes everything.
Abraham’s servant arrived with ten camels. Ten. And Rebecca didn’t hesitate. She said “Drink, my Lord.” And she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” (Genesis 24:18-19 ESV) That sounds simple on the surface, but it wasn’t simple at all. A thirsty camel can drink 20–25 gallons after a long journey. That means Rebecca may have drawn 200–250 gallons of water. I try to picture that. Ancient wells weren’t faucets you turned on. She would have lowered her jar, filled it, hauled it up, carried it to the trough, poured it out, and then done it all over again. If her jar held maybe 2½–3 gallons, that would mean roughly 85–100 trips. Trip after trip. Lift after lift. Step after step. It likely took two to three hours, maybe longer. For a young woman, carrying heavy water jars repeatedly, this was physically exhausting work. The more I think about it, the more I realize this passage isn’t really about water. It’s about character.
Rebecca probably spent hours hauling water that evening. Strength. Patience. Endurance. A servant’s heart. No wonder this moment stands out so powerfully. When I slow down and truly picture it, her faithfulness feels even more beautiful. As I’ve been thinking about covenants in Scripture, I’m realizing they were never casual or merely symbolic. A biblical covenant wasn’t just words spoken between two parties. It was physical. It was weighty. It involved real actions that bound people together before God and witnesses. There was seriousness to it — permanence — even a life-and-death kind of commitment.
The Hebrew phrase for making a covenant is karat berit — “to cut a covenant.” That wording alone makes me pause. Something had to be cut. This wasn’t abstract language; it described an actual act. Animals — a heifer, a goat, a ram, sometimes birds — were slaughtered. The larger animals were cut in half and laid opposite each other, forming a path between the pieces. Then one or both covenant parties would walk between them. What they were saying without speaking was sobering: May this happen to me if I break this covenant. Blood was involved because blood represented life itself (Leviticus 17:11). To enter a covenant was to bind yourself with your very life. It was not temporary. It was not flexible. It was unto death. When I think about the covenant in Genesis 15, I’m especially moved. The pattern is there — the animals, the divided pieces, the path. But Abraham doesn’t walk through. God does. Appearing as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, He passes between the pieces alone while Abraham is in a deep sleep. That detail changes everything for me. In that moment, the “walk” wasn’t about mutual performance. It was about divine faithfulness. God was taking full responsibility. The covenant rested on Him — not on Abraham’s ability to keep it perfectly. The weight of it, the permanence of it, the life-and-death commitment — all of it was placed on God’s shoulders. It reminds me that His promises are not fragile. They are sacred. Irreversible. Secured by His own faithfulness, not mine. Knowing that God is revealing Himself on every page of Scripture and that He wants me to grow in my understanding of who He is shows me that I am moving in the right direction for 2026.
Knowing that God is sovereign over all things shows me that I can trust Him because He will always be standing — even when the world around me is not.
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AuthorBrenda McCullers 
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