Friday, January 1, 2010

Walking the Rocky Road of God's Call

"Now the Lord had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you." (Gen. 12:1)

God's unusual calling. It can strike in many ways and is rarely conducive to our own convenience. Abram was a man of some means, and the heir of his father's fortune as the oldest son. However, God asked him to trust the calling on His life to leave His father's house, leave his inheritance, and venture out to a new land.

Now, Abram wasn't a poor guy and apparently he had many servants and livestock from his launching point in Haran, but it was still a big risk to go to a new place with no assurances of success other than God's calling.

And that reminds me (as it always does) of my personal obligation to the Lord. Do I trust Him? Am I willing to sacrifice everything that I have built up in this place to go to another at His call?
When my wife and I were praying on whether to move here to California, we were relatively set in Seattle. We had a really good life with the prospects of buying a new home, and a good steady paycheck. Everything we had was growing in a way that promised us a nice, secure future. But we felt a pressing from the Lord to move. We tried to suppress the calling for a time because we didn't have any arrangements in CA and we were fixated on maintaining our material security, but the Lord kept at us, telling us to move and to trust.

And so we moved and doing so was a huge weight off our shoulders, and we were confident that the Lord would provide. However, now that we have settled in here, we are finding that the job market is tough and our provisions are being met by our savings. So where is God?

I am confidently writing today, in the middle of this quandary, and I can say that He is with us still. I don't know how it will all play out, and there times of frustration and heavy prayer, but my wife and I don't feel like we made a mistake at all. We may have had a good secure life in Seattle, but our spiritual life was slowly decaying. What we have found here in our new place is a renewed love of the Lord. Again, not all the pieces of what the Lord will do for us here is known by us (in truth, we know nothing except today), but still our faith and confidence in Him is renewed.

One of the key truths that I have learned during this time is that God's path is straight and narrow, but it isn't without its difficulty with steep inclines and deep valleys. It has become fashionable in today's Christianity to think of God has one who rolls out the red carpet for His servants, but I believe the reality can be the direct opposite, where He increases the level of difficulty in our lives in order to develop our characters.

I think again to the story of Abram, and we see that although he reached the land of Canaan, a famine there pushed him into Egypt where the Pharaoh temporarily took his wife as his. Although God's calling and promises were still intact, they did not flow absolutely perfectly. Things developed over time, and even the fullness of the Lord's promises took generations to fulfill. (Gen 12)

In Gen 14, we also see that in the context of the world at the time, Abram was not a major player. The major political battles were being fought by the Kings of the various cities, and they kidnapped Abram's nephew Lot. I was reminded that God isn't looking to use the world's most powerful men, as they usually have their own selfish agenda on their minds. But, He will use the most humble, faithful and obedient instead.

Sometimes the mission we are on doesn't end with us. And it shouldn't. God isn't planning for just my family, but He is planning for generations of our descendants. So I sit here writing, knowing that I may not do anything of worldly note with my life (actually, I am certain I won't), but as long as I keep my children focused on the Lord, I will be setting my generations up for a large kingdom work. And that is my heart's deepest desire.

Lord Jesus, I know that You have a greater plan that just my life and my generation. Our job isn't to gain worldly power, but instead to simply be obedient to Your word and Your calling as You reveal it to us. My heart's prayer is to remain true to You and to that truth. Help me to focus my eyes on You and be a good parent to my children. In Jesus' name, AMEN.

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