The Lord had said to Abram, "Leave ... " So Abram left

The Call of Abram

1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.

2 "I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."

4 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. 5 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, and they arrived there.

...

If God is a fair and just God, Abraham must have done something really, really wonderful for God to bear with his descendants and calling them His people. The book of Genesis, as I read it through in my bible-in-a-year program, tells of this man's "humble" beginnings. In fact, it doesn't really tells us much about Abram (as he was named) before He was called out of the place called Ur of the Chaldeans. Yes, I always think that is a weird name of a place. So we have to check out his character, personality and life post-Ur. I leave this "checking-out" to you, as I will have no time to do that in this entry.

The first hint/the beginning of a great and wonderful (sometimes Tragic) story of the Jews starts really from chapter 12. Here, the LORD (Yahweh) for the first of many times calls Abram (I shall find out exactly why He picked Abram and not me or you), and speaks a blessing into this man's life. This little one-way conversation apparently changed Abram's life forever. A great demand, yes, to "leave your country, people, and your father's household". Yet, this man of faith did not question God's intention but instead did just as he was commanded. The strangest thing is, Abram did not attend church, or know much about thid God. That IS faith. And he was 75 years old.

I guess, parallelly speaking, we are also called to leave our environment, circumstances and forsake all to take up the cross and follow Jesus- not so much of a different from Abram spiritually speaking. Although one might say he had blind faith, but we shall find out that it was not blind faith. Faith is indeed believing what is unseen, what has not happened- that it will take place in the future. Faith is being obedient to His Word, no matter how inconvenient it could be to us. Faith is being sure that the pain we have, will be nothing compared to the gain we will get. The only way for us to do so today, is to fix our eyes on Jesus- love Him more than anything, continue to endure our faith, and praise Him every moment.



Tomorrow: Abram called to nowhere?