Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Rev Pam Reed for writing this.
You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Genesis 12:1-9 (NRSV)
12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
Devotional: Risky Business
Can you imagine it? Abram (later known as Abraham) is called to leave his extended family and all that he knows to go to… somewhere. There are no details about what will happen or what the destination will be. Just the call: GO…. “to the land that I will show you.” (1) Would you do that?
At times in my life, I’ve been called by God to move, but I’ve always had some idea of the destination. And I know that I will still have contact with the family and friends I am leaving. But for Abram there were none of those certainties.
Yes, blessings are promised – amazing blessings – of nationhood, recognition, and being blessed by others (2-3). But those are long-term blessings – they will take years to fulfil. Abram doesn’t have any children, so the blessing of being a great nation is difficult to imagine. As for being a blessing to all the families of the earth (3), what does that even mean?
There’s another question: Who is this God who is calling Abram? God’s voice hasn’t been heard since the time of Noah. Can Abram trust this message he has received from a God that he may not know?
But Abram does trust the God who speaks to him, takes his family and goes where God leads (4-5). When he arrives in Canaan, he worships the God who has led him (8-9). He doesn’t make use of existing altars, but builds his own, recognising that the God who is with him is different from other gods.
Abram risked all for a God he barely knew, for the sake of promises he may not see fulfilled and became a key person in the story of God’s grace.
The Gospel reading for this week (Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26) also shows people who were prepared to risk all to follow God’s leading: a tax collector, a woman with chronic health problems, and a synagogue leader. Are we prepared to do the same?
Prayer:
Our God, thank you that you know us even when we don’t know you. Thank you that when you call us, you go with us. Help us to have the courage to follow your call and your lead, even when we can’t see all the details. Amen.