400 years

And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years..."
                                                       Acts 7:2-6

A brief reflection on this part of Acts 7...

I think we need to just stop for a good minute to truly take this in.  I feel like the "health and wealth gospel" is shattered even by this short passage!  "Hey, Abraham- I'm going to miraculously give you and Sarah a kid when you're 100 years old.  And eventually Jesus is going to come through your lineage and reconcile to myself heinously sinful people who I love passionately.  But you will die long before anything all that good comes, and for the next 400 years your family will be homeless and/or slaves to people that will never love me.  (But don't worry, I will judge them eventually. [Acts 7:7])  But man, Abraham, this is such an amazing promise!"  And according to Hebrews 11:13-16, Abraham embraced this whole thing, never really saw much good come from it, and died fully believing that- the hope God offered that was way bigger than the span of his life- was a truly good promise, coming from a truly good God.  A God who is faithful to His character and His promises.  And such an awesome God that homelessness, slavery, hunger, suffering, oppression, attack, etc. with God on the journey He laid out for His people was incomparably greater than security, wealth, comfort, power, etc. without God.

I WANT THAT KIND OF FAITH.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
                                                       Hebrews 11:13-16