The Contract Only One Side Signed

In 2018, a young couple in East Nashville sat across from a mortgage lender, overwhelmed. They had no savings, inconsistent income, and a credit history that made bankers wince. They wanted to buy a small bungalow on Shelby Avenue — their first home — but every number on the spreadsheet said no.

Then the woman's father did something remarkable. He walked into the office, sat down, and signed every document himself. He assumed the debt. He guaranteed the payments. He put his own property up as collateral. His daughter and her husband never picked up a pen. They simply watched, stunned, as someone who loved them bore the entire weight of a promise they could never carry alone.

That evening in Genesis 15 works the same way. When Abram prepared the covenant animals and laid them out in two rows, he knew the ancient ritual. Both parties were supposed to walk between the pieces, essentially saying, "May this be done to me if I break my word." But as darkness fell and Abram lay in deep sleep, only a smoking firepot and a blazing torch — the presence of God Himself — passed between those pieces.

El Shaddai signed the contract alone. Abram never walked that path. The Almighty bore the full obligation of the covenant, staking His own faithfulness on a promise made to a man who had nothing to offer but belief.

That is the kind of God who holds your future.