“Now the Lord had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing” (Genesis 12:1-2).
Do you always like doing the same things or do you like to go like experiencing some new ventures? When we look through life through the eye of faith, every day can be a new adventure as we are seeking to grow in our relationship with God and experiences how He is at work in our lives.
Following the Great Flood, the death of Noah, and the scattering of the people of the earth after the destruction of the towel at Babel, the next great important Biblical character we come to is Abram, who later will become known to us as Abraham (Genesis 17:5). As the opening verses above indicate, God called Abram on a great adventure (Genesis 12:1-2).
The great adventure God called Abram out on was not an easy one. God called Abram to leave his country, his family, and his father’s house (Genesis 12:1). At the time, Abram was 75 years old (Genesis 12:3). Abram was roughly in what we would call his “middle age” part of life (i.e. he would live to be 175 years old, Genesis 25:7). By this stage in his life, he was married, financially stable, and probably firmly set in a lot of his habits. In other words, he was comfortable.
God calls him to leave everything and does not even tell Abram where exactly He is sending him. The Lord only says He is going to take him “to a land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). What would you do if you were in Abram’s shoes? Would you not want to ask God, “God where exactly are we going and what can I expect to get when I get there?” Would you not also wander, “God, how am I going to provide for my and myself once I get there?” God doesn’t tell him any of those details.
However, God does make some great promises to Abram. The Lord tells Abram that He will (1) make of him a great nation, (2) make his name great, (3) make him to be a blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:2-3). This last promise that in Abram all the families of the earth would be blessed was fulfilled by Christ who came from the lineage of Abram (Galatians 3:16-29).
For these precious promises that God made to Abram to be fulfilled there was something Abram must do. As those of us from the south like to say, he had to “git”. He had to get going on the adventure God had for him. He had to move forward in faith trusting in God’s promises more than allowing the fears of the unknown to overwhelm him. Abram moved out in faith: “So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:4-5).
Abram’s adventurous journey with God had its ups and downs. At times he showed great faith in God, at times he did not. However, overall he is commended to us as one of the heroes of faith we should all admire (cf. Hebrews 11:8-10, 17-19). I admire Abram as one of the heroes to whom I look up. Today, like Abram, I will step out on the adventuresome journey God has for me trusting in God’s promises and not allowing the fears of the unknown to overcome me!
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).