We will spend the next five to six weeks in worship reflecting on some of the Abraham/Sarah/Isaac stories from Genesis. Like most of Genesis, these stories reveal the challenge of being faithful and how hard it is to put God in a box and say this is exactly who God is. As we read these stories, pay particular attention to how God 's promises and the fulfillment of those promises provide the hope for Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac to move forward in faith. God 's claim on them invites them into new beginnings. But also notice that the God of those promises is also the God of endings. To move forward in a new way means giving up the old ways. As Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann argues, "Times of beginning and ending are times when the mystery of life becomes most urgent and when the hardest questions must be asked " ( Genesis, 162). As we explore the relationship between God and Abraham/Sarah/Isaac, we perhaps will see ourselves on display - the hope we have in God; the struggle we have to understand what God is doing in our lives; and the God who finds us in the beginnings and endings of our life 's journey.