Hey Everyone.
This summer I have been reading a book called Invitation to a Journey by M. Robert Mulholland Jr.
About halfway through the book, Mulholland makes a reference to Abraham and his journey, saying "O God, I feel like Abraham must have felt when he started his journey of obedience to you, not knowing where he was going." This comment struck me because I have often felt like that. So I started looking at Abraham and his journey to see what I could learn for my own journey.
In Gen. 12:1 God says to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you." Verse 4 says, "so Abram left, as the Lord had told him." Good for Abraham. He is obedient to God. He is commended for his faith in Hebrews 11:8 for doing this. It says, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." This would challenging for me. I would really want to know the plan. I lack patience. I read spoilers. I would have had a million questions. "Can I have a map?" "How will I know when I get there?" Questions like that. Nevertheless, it appears that without a clear plan, Abraham took God's promise and loaded up the family and moved to some place that God would reveal to him. So Abraham arrives in the "Promised Land." Notice what happens shortly after they arrive in this new land. In Gen. 12:10 it says that there is a famine in the land and they they have to move on the Egypt. I think that I would have had a hard time with this. "Go to Egypt? I just got here." "God, this land you brought me to is really awful. How can this be the plan?" I would have really questioned God because things were not going the way I thought they were supposed. I mean imagine arriving at the place God has told you to go to, only to need to go somewhere else shortly after you got there.
Then in chapter 13, shortly after coming back to this Promised Land from Egypt, Abraham starts having family problems and has to part ways with his nephew Lot. Again, something happens that was not supposed to happen. Abraham undaunted continues to do God's will. And God continues to bless him. How often do we struggle in our faith when things don't seem to go the way they should, or we are having problems with a family member? I couldn't tell you how times I have said things like "God, I don't understand what you are doing." (Now, to be fair to us, Abraham was not perfect. I skipped part of the story in Gen. 12 where Abraham really blew it in Egypt. You can read that on your own if you wish.)
So what can I learn from Abraham? First, he was obedient to God, no matter what. God told him to go, he went. Later, God would tell him to sacrifice his son and he set off to do even that. Abraham's obedience to the will of God set him apart as a man of great faith. Secondly, Abraham worshipped God every where he went. Notice this:
Gen. 12:7 "So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him."
Gen. 12:8 "So he built an alter to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord."
Gen. 13:18 "so Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord."
Obedience no matter what and worship no matter where. These are things that Abraham took on his journey. I should take them on mine.
Tom
