The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. (Genesis 12:1)
GOD’S CALL of Abram began with an imperative—a clear command. God told him to leave his country for a land that He would show him . . . sometime later. To receive the promised blessings, Abram had to leave behind everything he relied on for safety and provision—homeland and relatives—and trust that God would honor His commitment. The call he received as a nomad for the Lord was a call to move, a call to go, a call to leave behind the comfortable and the familiar.
Put yourself in Abram’s place for a moment. You’re roughly seventy-five years old, with a wife in her mid-sixties. You’ve lived in one place your whole life. You have an established homestead in a familiar city with family and a community you’ve known since birth. Suddenly, the Lord appears to you in a manifestation you cannot deny as authentically supernatural, and He tells you to pack up and hit the road for an undisclosed destination.
Everything within us recoils from making big changes without thorough planning. Most of us need to see where we’re jumping before committing to a leap. But God called Abram to obey this call without complete information. Abram didn’t know where he was going, so he couldn’t trust in a well-thought-out, long-range plan. Nevertheless, the Lord gave Abram sufficient information to make a reasonable decision.
When Abram encountered the Lord, he knew that God was real. The undeniable echo of God’s voice left him no room for doubt. While his neighbors thought he had lost his mind, Abram had good reason to trust in God, even without knowing every detail of the plan.
REFLECT
Has the Lord ever called you to do something without giving you all the details up front? What helps you trust Him, even when you don’t have all the information?
I trust in God, so why should I be afraid?
Content taken from FAITH FOR THE JOURNEY, by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2014. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
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