“The Lord said to Abram:
‘Go from your land,
your relatives,
and your father’s house
to the land that I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation,
I will bless you,
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt,
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.’
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan.”
Genesis 12:1-5 (Bold added)
Could you do it? Could you leave your culture and relatives behind, and move to a foreign country you have not even visited, if a God you may not know well told you to do it? How about if at the time, He didn’t tell you exactly where you were going? All the Lord said to Abram about the place was to go “to the land that I will show you.” I’d imagine it would feel a bit like Amazing Race. You’d receive your first instruction: “Go southwest. Follow that trail for a while until you reach your next clue. I’ll instruct you which road to take next when you get there.” You have no idea where that next road would be or how long it would take to get there. Maybe Abram sensed it would be Canaan considering his father had originally planned to move there, and he knew the blessing Noah gave to his Abram’s ancestor, Shem, was to rule over Canaan. But having never been there before, Abram had no idea what to expect other than possibly some rumors of what people had shared while passing through Chaldea or Haran.
Perhaps your initial feeling would be a mix of excitement for the adventure and grief for leaving comfort and loved ones behind. For some of you, that would be the hardest assignment you’d ever receive. Your dad, your nephew, your wife, and you already broke away from all your relatives who were living in Ur of Chaldea. Now you’re going to have to leave your father behind. Who would care for him as he grew old? Would you consider all the questions and possible things that could happen first or pick up and leave without allowing much thought to gestate? Abram chose to obediently leave Haran showing he had some level of trusted relationship with the Lord. And as we’ll move through Genesis, we’ll see this relationship continue to deepen over time, beginning in Genesis 12:1 with the Lord speaking to Abram by some method whether audibly or another.
How wonderful would it be to receive a message from the Lord giving you instructions in what He wanted you to do, and have it stamped with a promise of blessing if/when you did it?! He told Abram that He would make him into a “great nation,” and He would bless him, and bless the world through him. But it wasn’t until he obeyed and entered a good distance into Canaan that God sealed that promise.
“When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem, at the oak of Moreh. (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.” Genesis 12:6-7
The first promise didn’t specifically indicate God would give Abram children. It just said He would make him into a great nation, that his name would be great, and many blessings would come. First objective to Abram’s mission was to venture to his “promised land.” “Nation” could have meant that it would happen through Abram not necessarily through children. We’ll see in future chapters that he thought this might mean through his nephew Lot who came with him to Canaan and then through one of his top servants. Our human finite minds try to understand the complexities of God’s plans in our simplified terms. So we try to manipulate them to fit our agendas and resources in the moment, but that’s not God’s desire. The Lord will continue to build upon the details of His plan over time as He trains us in righteousness. The initial assignment from God helped motivate Abram forward but what the Lord fully meant in this promise could have never been grasped by Abram at the time, or in his entire lifetime because the blessed promise God gave him is still being fulfilled in a greater spiritual sense today.
When Abram finished the first objective of moving to the land to which God directed him, the Lord blessed him by physically appearing to Abram. Again, like the Amazing Race, He blessed him for fulfilling the first assignment and then gave him more detail to his mission – that the nation would be built by his own offspring. How can you question God’s word when He stands right before you?! I wonder if Abram initially thought it would come from Sarai who was already 65 at the time or if she would die and he would marry another woman to make it happen? Did he tell Sarai what God said at this point or did he keep the word to himself for a bit to think about it?
Abram’s response to the Lord was to build an altar and commune with Him in worship. It’s like heaven and earth joined together for a moment and what happened in heaven in worship is what was happening here on earth as Abram made a sacrifice before God. What all transpired in that moment they had together? Did the Lord share with Abram the significance of offering a sacrifice on the altar? Did He give him an inkling that the Saviour of the world would come from his offspring? As the Lord stood before Abram in this developing unity of their relationship at the oak of Moreh in Shechem, did He think about the future events to take place in this eventual city?
- When Abram’s grandson, Jacob, would also build an altar here to Him and a well to reside in the land for a time?
- How Joshua and the Israelites would shout the Law’s blessings and curses to one another at the two mountains here to declare them over the land when they first entered their promised land?
- How sin would devastate this place a number of times throughout history and the nation of Israel would become divided here?
- Or perhaps the Lord was compelled to think of the Samaritan woman who would meet Him in this place at Jacob’s well and the world’s invitation to His Kingdom’s Good News would go forth from the Israelites, to the Samaritans, to the Gentile world of His gift of salvation? This pivotal moment that would change history forever?
Like Abram, we have no idea of the greater picture at work through our lives. We cannot see or understand the thoughts and ways of the Lord, or how any one moment or place can hold eternal significance. One decision to follow God’s assignment by faith can change lives forever. We’re all connected in some fashion in order to share the love and light of Christ to the whole world. When we live in obedience to the Lord, mighty things happen!
It wasn’t Abram’s mandate to save the world; that was God’s. But it was his responsibility to take the steps of faith to give his life to the Lord and pursue whatever seemingly crazy assignments He gave him. And that’s also yours and my mission; to participate in the “Amazing Race” God has planned for us; to be willing to leave things behind, to do the humanly impossible, the uncomfortable, in order to build upon God’s master plan.
So, what next step is God instructing you to do right now? Don’t look down the road to try to figure out who might journey with you in the future or how you’re going to get to the next five sets of instructions, or what resources you’ll need to accumulate along the way. Just focus on the one step in front of you and trust the Lord to connect you with the right people, the details, and resources of the plan as you go. Enjoy the adventure and remember to set up those altars of worship along the way. You never know who will come across those markers and what God will do in those places for others.
