A Thought for Monday 10/6/14

“The Lord said to Abram, ‘Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land 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.  I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’.”  Genesis 12:1-3 NKJV

Of course we know what happened next.  Seemingly without question and without hesitation, “Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him” (vs 4).  Abram had no insight or foreknowledge of what would come of this journey.  He functioned strictly under the assurance given that he would be “shown” a land (unknown), that he would become a “great nation” (whatever that might come to mean), that he would be completely under Divine Protection, and that those he would surely come into contact with in the course of this journey would be “blessed” or “cursed”.  Everything would depend on The Lord.

Walking by faith rather than by sight is the single, most challenging effort we can undertake.  There is not likely a day that goes by in which we are not equally challenged to trust in The Lord’s providence to some degree, but it is also likely that we miss out on those opportunities because we are too caught up in our own individual agendas.  We are overwhelmed by the challenges of daily life, we are confronted with those who seem determined to do us harm, and we now are faced with the possibility of Ebola getting out of hand in the United States.  And still the Church continues to dwindle.

At a time when the people should be running to The Lord, it seems rather they are determined to find for themselves the answers they seek … and they always come up short – as do we when we depend on our own cunning, our own ideas, and our own opinions about what is needed.

I find it hard to believe Abram is the only one who is ever called away from his safety and security and familiar surroundings.  Given the “Great Commission” issued by the Lord Jesus before His Ascension, it seems likely the Church is being called away from its comfort, away from its security, away from its familiarity, and into a Journey from which we will find real identity; but it takes the whole Church, not pieces.  And while we will not know beforehand how the Journey will unfold, we can embrace the same assurance that we will be “shown” what we need to see and that we will be protected along the way. 

It will not be easy and it will likely not be personally rewarding for a few individuals, but it will be exactly what The Lord has in mind for those who do not yet know His Name or His Word.  It will be what The Lord desires it to be, and that will be good enough.

Blessings,

Michael