A Whole New Way
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. – Genesis 12:4
Abram’s journey towards finding the will of God for his life begins expanding his understanding of the power of God. If you go back to chapter 11, you’ll discover that Abram experiences a great deal of trauma in the land of his birth. His brother Haran dies in Ur of the Chaldees, and then Abram’s family arrives at a town that was named after their deceased brother and family member. There must have been a great deal of pain experienced by the family as they struggled with all the memories of their loved one.
To make matters worse, Abram’s father Terah died in that place. It got so bad that the text says in verse 31 that Abram and his caravan stopped in Haran and they settled there. So by the time we catch up with Abram in chapter 12, he has gone through a lot. He is grieving the loss of his brother and father. He’s had his career put on pause. The people around him have become comfortable in this place of compromise that’s not God’s ultimate will for their lives. And so, they’re kind of stuck at the end of chapter 11.
But what inspires me as chapter 12 unfolds is that Abram didn’t get stuck in Haran. He could have given up and gotten stuck in chapter 11 and used the pain and the problems that he experienced back there as an excuse not to move on. He could have said, “My brother died, and my father didn’t make it, so I’m not going to make it.” But he doesn’t do all of that. He learns to live for God by leaning on the power of God to do something he has never done, to go to a place he’s never been, and to witness something he’s never witnessed.
God had to tell Abram to move to a new place, so he could experience the power of God in a whole new way, one that was not limited by his experience or was confined to his surroundings. This is one of the reasons many fail to experience God’s will. They are not willing to take the journey of faith to experience the power of God in a new way. My prayer is that this won’t be true for you. Instead, I hope you continue to keep moving forward despite difficult circumstances, that you trust God when life gets hard, and that you seek to experience God’s power in a whole new way when you’re at the end of your rope.
Abram’s journey towards finding the will of God for his life begins expanding his understanding of the power of God. If you go back to chapter 11, you’ll discover that Abram experiences a great deal of trauma in the land of his birth. His brother Haran dies in Ur of the Chaldees, and then Abram’s family arrives at a town that was named after their deceased brother and family member. There must have been a great deal of pain experienced by the family as they struggled with all the memories of their loved one.
To make matters worse, Abram’s father Terah died in that place. It got so bad that the text says in verse 31 that Abram and his caravan stopped in Haran and they settled there. So by the time we catch up with Abram in chapter 12, he has gone through a lot. He is grieving the loss of his brother and father. He’s had his career put on pause. The people around him have become comfortable in this place of compromise that’s not God’s ultimate will for their lives. And so, they’re kind of stuck at the end of chapter 11.
But what inspires me as chapter 12 unfolds is that Abram didn’t get stuck in Haran. He could have given up and gotten stuck in chapter 11 and used the pain and the problems that he experienced back there as an excuse not to move on. He could have said, “My brother died, and my father didn’t make it, so I’m not going to make it.” But he doesn’t do all of that. He learns to live for God by leaning on the power of God to do something he has never done, to go to a place he’s never been, and to witness something he’s never witnessed.
God had to tell Abram to move to a new place, so he could experience the power of God in a whole new way, one that was not limited by his experience or was confined to his surroundings. This is one of the reasons many fail to experience God’s will. They are not willing to take the journey of faith to experience the power of God in a new way. My prayer is that this won’t be true for you. Instead, I hope you continue to keep moving forward despite difficult circumstances, that you trust God when life gets hard, and that you seek to experience God’s power in a whole new way when you’re at the end of your rope.
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