Sometimes I wonder why God does things in the way that He does. Okay, not just sometimes, ALOT of the time! For example, while I was reading in Genesis about God’s call to Abram, I began to wonder why God would call Abram to leave his country, his people, and his family and "go to a land that I will tell you." Really? Leave everything familiar to me and go...somewhere, but I'm not going to tell you where until you get there. Not only is God asking him to leave all that is familiar and comfortable to him, but he's asking him to do this without telling him where he was going! What a tremendous amount of faith it would take to do this which, I imagine, is why he is named in the "Hall of Faith" in Hebrews!
I am so curious what this was like for his wife! I can just imagine what I would say and do if my husband came home one day and said to me that God told him that we were to leave our home here, all our family and friends, our church, our jobs and get in our car and move to another location. My first question would be where are we going and that would be followed quickly by do you have a job there? I'm pretty sure I would completely freak out if he said, I don't know where we are going and no, I don't have a job! The Bible doesn't tell us what went on in that "tent" when Abram brought this news home, but I can tell you, I would LOVE to have been a fly on the tent flap to hear that conversation! But in the end, regardless of the conversation that went on behind the scenes, they went. They had incredible faith and trust in God and followed Him blindly.
God didn't have to ask this of them. He could have called them to leave and told them where they were going and reassured them that when they got there, all would be well. But He didn't... there was little information for him to go on...other than God’s promises to bless him. I am struck once again at how much God wants us to simply believe Him and take Him at His word. If God spelled everything out for Abram (or for us for that matter), how much faith would it require of us to follow Him. How much more our faith grows when we follow in the face of uncertainty. We learn to see that God really is who He says He is and does what He says He will do!
Abram had such great faith in following God and it is such an example to us, but verses later he falters. This is just one of the things I love about the honesty of the Bible...we see these people have their mountain top experiences of great and courageous faith, and then two verses down they fall...majorly. When Abram finally arrives at the place God brought him to things did not turn out well. There was a severe famine in the land. Here's another one of the "why" moments for me. Really God, they just followed you blindly throughout the land. They were so obedient and trusting and they sacrificed so much to come to this place...and you lead them into a famine? I would have expected there to be nothing but good times at the place where God led them. Plenty to eat … plenty to drink. But certainly not a desert in the midst of famine!
But doesn't that happen in our lives as well? We follow God, sometimes at great cost, and then we expect things to go well. And when it doesn’t we feel abandoned by Him, or maybe we doubt we heard His calling. And I bet that's what Abram thought, and he (like we), decided to take matters into his own hands. He left the land that he was called to and went to Egypt a place known to have plenty of resources. There he continued to control and manipulate his situation in order to protect himself and his family (Gen. 12:10-16). And that's exactly what we do. We panic when things do not go the way we think they should...when there are unexpected trials or obstacles, and we decide to take matters into our own hands. We manipulate our circumstances to provide for ourselves instead of trusting in God to provide and care for us and then, in the end, we make a mess of everything.
I believe that the Bible is a book that God has preserved for us to reveal Himself to us so that we might know Him and love Him. From the opening words of Genesis 1 until the very last word in Revelation, we can begin to see and understand this God who has made us. Reading the Bible with that focus in mind, I love discovering what can be learned about God through this story...that God calls people of his choosing for His purposes…that God longs for us to trust Him and believe that He keeps His word… that He is sovereign over disease, and kings, and lands, and situations, and circumstances... that God's plans cannot and will not be thwarted (even in spite of our disobedience)…that God can bring good from our failure for His glory…that God makes and keeps His promises.
But we can also see ourselves in this story. We can see how we try to take back control of our own lives and our own situations. We can see how difficult it is to trust and remain obedient to God when we find ourselves in the middle of a famine. But is it possible to learn that God is a God that we can depend on and trust even when we are in the midst of a famine? Can we learn to walk in obedience in the face of trials? Can we surrender control of our past, present, and future, to the only One who is wise enough to know what is best for us and strong enough to be able to bring it about?
We can when we know Him and love Him. “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3). Simply put, the more we know Him, the more we trust Him and can then walk in obedience to Him. Pray for open eyes to see His attributes and a softened heart to understand His ways. Seek to know Him deeply, not just for head knowledge, but for our heart's knowledge. Pursue Him. Desire Him. Learn of Him. Cling tenaciously to His promises and His Word.
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