go

Genesis 12:1-3 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

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.

I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.”

This is an interesting moment in the story of God’s people, because it seems to me to be a transition from a kind of aimlessness to a sense of purpose. Abram represents the 10th generation since the ark came to rest after the flood, a long span of history summarized in a few verses of genealogy. Whatever may have happened during those years, the only event in all that time that is mentioned in scripture is the scrambling of languages at the Tower of Babel.

Now God speaks to the son of a wandering patriarch, Terah, who had stopped with his clan midway on a trip from Chaldea to Canaan years before. He has a simple command: “Go.” Abram doesn’t know exactly where, or why, or what he will do. He’s only told that if he obeys, his ancestors will become a great nation.

That was enough for Abram, and the seeds of the covenant were sown. One day soon would come that vision of God passing between the butchered animals, taking responsibility for both sides of the covenant with Abraham and his people. And on another day centuries later, Jesus would redeem me and make me part of the covenant. This episode in today’s reading initiates the restored relationship that I and my family have with God.

I wonder if I could have gone in faith like Abram did. Probably – I believe God doesn’t call people like he did Abram without equipping them to follow. I don’t know of anyone who resisted God’s call to a specific mission like this. So far, I haven’t had a call like that, but Abram is still a great hero of faith, a model of obedience that I need to be reminded of.

My road of obedience looks a lot different, but I can still only walk it in God’s strength. My prayer today is to see what God would have me do, and then to find the will to do it.