Today is the seventh day of January. Welcome. Welcome back to the global campfire, everybody.

Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. It is wonderful and I am grateful to be in this safe oasis, this place that we can come and that whatever is going on go.

Just give ourselves permission to exhale.

This is a safe place.

We're just here to read the Bible.

And now we need this.

We might think that we're so behind or, you know, things are getting a little out of hand.

We don't really have time.

We might find that we gain so much more time and life and perspective back by investing the time into our spirits and into our relationship with God.

The dividends are so much more than the reckless chaos that life can throw at us.

So I'm glad that we are in this safe place,

a place that can restore, a place that can repair us.

So let's take the next step forward.

We are now in the book of Genesis slowed down and focusing hard on a man named Abram.

And like I've said, let's pay attention because this is the origin story. This is the foundation story. This family, as this all develops, shapes the entire rest of the Bible.

Genesis, Chapter 16, verse 1, Sarai, had not born any children for him, but she owned an Egyptian slave named Hagar.

Sarai said to Abram,

Since the Lord has prevented me from bearing children,

go to my slave.

Perhaps through her I can build a family.

And Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

So Abram's wife, Sarai, took Hegar, her Egyptian slave,

...