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I feel that it is significant that Abraham called on the name of the one true God, Yahweh, because, it appears to me, from the passage, that Abraham is at a cross-roads. He has just stopped near Bethel. Then, he builds and altar and calls on the name of HIS Lord. I think he is not sure at this point where he's supposed to go. He's probably feeling very much like an outsider. He's in a foreign land, he is basically alone in his worship of Yahweh as the only true and living God, he's a gypsy moving from place to place and he's possibly come to the end of what he knows to do. So, he calls on God. "THEN, Abram set out and continued toward the Negev" (Gen 12:9). I think he calls on the name of our Lord and the Lord answers him and says, "keep going toward the Negev. You're on the right track. Just keep your eyes fixed on me." So, now that Abram has a little reassurance, he heads out. It is interesting to note that immediately following this section of scripture, there is a great famine mentioned, so Abram and Sarah go to Egypt. Well, if they had gone any other direction from Bethel besides toward the Negev, they might not have been close enough to travel to Egypt to avoid the famine. Who knows. When I call on the name of the Lord, often it is in desperation over my situation. I am currently trying to move closer to my Lord and spend more time with Him that I might come to know His voice more readily when He calls. I want to know when He is expressing His will to me. I want to have a beautiful, personal relationship with the one true God of the universe, my God, Yahweh.

I don't know if it is "special" faith or not. Maybe it is in the sense that Abraham did not "know" God previous to God speaking to him about the move, and yet, he trusted that he was hearing from the one true God, and he obeyed I do find it interesting to note, though, that Abraham had many stumbles along the way that people seem to look over. To me, the story of Abraham is of great encouragment, not only because he was a man of great faith, but also because he was a man who's faith faltered briefly on occassion, and God still looked on him with grace and mercy and with the blessing that was promised him because Abraham managed to always come back to God. For Abraham's sake, it was a good thing that God was so faithful to His promise, because Abraham on many occassions was only "partly" obedient. For instance, bringing Terah and Lot with him out of UR. Not according to God's plan. So, what happens? Abraham ends up waiting for years for the promised blessing to come. In fact, he doesn't leave Haran until he's 75. But, it would appear (as opposed to what I said in a previous post) that he does NOT wait for his father to die before leaving Haran. Chronologically, I believe that would have made him 135. So, it would appear that he leaves Haran 60 years before his father dies. it seems to me that maybe the passage in 12:1 is an indication to us that the Lord "reminded" Abraham of his calling to "leave his father's household" in order to receive the blessing. So, he leaves. His faith in God once more revealed, but also the imperfect nature of his obedience to God. He only half obeys, AGAIN, because he brings Lot with him ("leave your people"). Then, if you pay careful attention, you'll notice that God does not speak to Abraham again about the blessing/covenant until AFTER he and Lot separate, when Lot moves to Sodom. THEN, the Lord renews His covenant with Abraham (Gen 13:14 - "The Lord said to Abram AFTER Lot had departed from him, ...."). Following that, Lot is captured and Abraham goes to free him. So, Abraham again goes back to the one thing that seems to continue to stand in the way of his receiving the blessing: Lot (Abraham's family). How often do we seem to keep going back to the very things that keep us from God's calling in our lives and his ultimate blessing. When Abraham rescues Lot, what does he do? He brings Lot and his possessions back home with him. People may disagree with me, but I believe this was not in obedience to God's original calling, since he was called to LEAVE his people behind when he left UR. I don't necessarily think there was anything wrong with Abraham going to save Lot, only that he brought Lot home with him. Only AFTER the King of Sodom takes the people back to Sodom (I assume that included Lot, although it doesn't actually say), does the Lord then AGAIN renew his covenant with Abraham and expand upon the details of the covenant by indicating Abraham will actually have a son "from [his] own body". Unfortunately, Abraham again blunders by allowing Sarah to convince him to sleep with Hagar instead of waiting on the Lord to provide a child through Sarah, his wife. So, again, Abraham waits for the blessing from God (14 more years for Isaac to come along) when it might have come much sooner had he been patient to begin with and not allowed Sarah to convince him otherwise. To be clear, I'm not putting all the blame on Sarah. The Lord has spoken to Abraham, not Sarah. Since HE had received the word from the Lord, HE should have been the one to stand firm and explain to Sarah that they needed to be patient and wait. He should not have slept with Hagar. So, now, Abraham has to waste another 14 years dealing with the Hagar, Ishmael, Sarah triangle, which never should have occured and you know had to be a MAJOR thorn in his side. Amazingly, God is still faithful and merciful to Abraham and answers his prayer regarding Ishmael. God tells him that He will bless Ishmael as well, even though the covenant will be with Isaac. There are certainly a few other examples of Abraham not completely trusting God in his EVERYDAY life while seemingly continuing to trust God "for the long haul". The sad part through all of this is that Abraham waited AT LEAST 25 years to see the beginnings of the blessing in his life (through Isaac). I would be willing to bet, though, that it is far closer to 60+ years. That is a LONG time to wait for the blessing, and it might have been much shorter, had he been fully obedient in the first place. So many times in life, God calls us to something and instead of being fully obedient, we are partly obedient, bringing along baggage that keeps us from the fullness of God's plan (or introducing baggage that didn't exist before). I can think of numerous occassions when God has called me to something, and I chose not to fully obey. I can, however, also think of times when I was fully obedient and the blessings from those events in my life seem to be so much more intense, it is hard not to see that the blessings in our lives are directly tied to our faith in God and our obedience to His calling. It is encouraging to know that Abraham was considered by God to be a man of great faith and obedience, even in the midst of so many "blunders". Helps me to recognize that I don't have to get it all right. I just have to make sure that each time I get up and brush myself off, the first thing I need to do is look for God to "get my bearings", before I decide which way to go.

As others have said, I believe that Abraham was first blessed in that God would have chosen him to speak to. It's not as if Abraham was already a worshiper of the one true and living God. He was, as best we know, worshipping the moon Gods. He was blessed in that God gave him the faith to believe that He truly was the one and only living God. Abraham could have easily chosen to disbelieve the word he had received. Many come face to face with our Lord and find ways to explain it away. He was blessed in that the Lord continued to use him and be patient with him, even though he was not fully obedient to the calling God had placed on him (Leave your country, your people and your father's household). Abraham chose to bring his father and his nephew Lot (or at least chose to allow his father to come along and to bring Lot with him). It would seem this is in direct contradiction to the Lord's will as expressed in 12:1. He was blessed in that God accepted Abraham's intercessions for Lot, who would have been killed in Sodom had it not been for Abraham's consistent pleading with the Lord for his life. God was very patient with Abraham. He was blessed with great wealth, health and prosperity. He was blessed with a strikingly beautiful wife who must have loved him terribly to allow herself to be, more or less, abducted twice, possibly as a result of the lies she told to protect Abraham's life (at his instruction) He was blessed with an heir in Isaac that would be the beginning of a great nation and eventually to Jesus, the Messiah. This, even after having slept with Sarah's maidservent Hagar, which, to me demonstrates a lack of faith in God to provide an heir through his wife Sarah. Sarah may have been the one to offer Hagar, but Abraham should have said no and trusted God to provide an heir through his wife. Abraham continues to bless every nation on earth in that every man, woman and child on this planet has the availability of a personal relationship with Father God via our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Through his lineage, the world has been offered the blessing of salvation. I believe that any time I yield to the Holy Spirt's leading and present the Gospel of Christ, either through my words or my actions and deeds, I am blessing the people's of the earth. And, this can only be as a result of Abraham's great faith in a God that he didn't even really know, in the beginning.

This doesn't quite answer the Question for today, but it is a question I have that maybe some of you have some insight on. The passage reads: [11:31] Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. [11:32] Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran. [12:1] 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. Dr. Wilson indicates that there may be some discrepency over whether the passage in 12:1 should read "HAD said" or just simply "said". Here is my question. Do any of you believe, as I do, that maybe it is more appropriate to think that the "HAD said" version is more accurate? First, if not, then why would they have picked up and left? That's a big move to make, "just because". Other questions that arise for me, though, are: 1) If the Lord spoke this to Abraham, what made all the rest of them tag along? If they really were a moon god worshipping culture, what would have made them think that GOD had actually spoken to Abraham? Did he have THAT much influence with his family, even his father? 2) Maybe the fact that Lot and Terah came along is precisely WHY Abraham ended up in a holding pattern in Haran. The Lord said to LEAVE your country, your people and your father's household. Maybe I'm misinterpreting this, but it comes across to me as, leave your family behind. I'm calling YOU. They will be a hinderance to you. Now, I'm assuming that since God is God is God, yesterday, today and forever, and His Word makes it clear how sacred the marriage relationship is, the assumption would be that Sarah would have been expected to come with Abraham. But, it seems that maybe Abraham was supposed to separate himself from Terah and Lot, but was not fully obedient in that. 3) To me, the placement of that verse at 12:1, AFTER they have stopped in Haran and basically waited until Terah has died gives me the impression that we are being almost "reminded" of the fact that this might not have had to be, if Abraham had actually listed to God fully and left Terah and Lot behind. Even though there was no mention previously of God speaking to Abraham about leaving, the passage in 12:1 implies that there was AND that Abraham's response was not FULLY obedient. 4) Some of the "proof" seems to simply be the rest of Abraham's journey to finally arrive in Canaan. First he has to wait in Haran for Terah to die. Who knows why. Maybe Terah makes the decision to stop there and is not ready to move on. Abraham is respecting his father's wishes. So, he waits in a holding pattern, missing out on what God had for him. Then, he has issues with Lot. First, the quarreling between their herdsman over land for the livestock. So, he parts ways with Lot. Then, he ends up having to rescue Lot. Then, he has to convince God not to wipe Lot off the face of the planet along with his less righteous neighbors in suburban Sodom. Seems to me that Abraham would have had a much easier time following God's direction and moving into his calling and his blessing, had he not brought Terah and Lot along for the ride. He should have broken those ties way back in Ur. Obviously, this is alot of speculation. I suppose it's entirely possible that it was God's plan that Terah and Lot come along and maybe Abraham would not have had opportunity to move into his calling any sooner. But, that's just how it comes across to me. What do you guys think?

My wife and my family were called to move to a new town to be more a part of our new church. We kept looking for a "used" home because we didn't want to go through the hassle or wait for a house to be built. Time after time we found a home we thought might be the one only to learn that it was not. It became very frustrating as we had our house up for sale for two years and still could not find anything (nor find a solid buyer for our previous home). I now know that it was God who intervened and purposely did not allow a buyer on our previous home, because we would have had nowhere to go. As we began questioning whether God had really called us to move to Lowell it became clear that the call had not changed, but our perspective had been skewed by our own want for the "easy path". As it turned out, the Lord had a wonderful 5 acre wooded plot already picked out for us. In addition, my wife had been feeling a call to begin a "home for unwed mothers", but we didn't really know the specifics of how that would materialize. Well, the Lord provided for that too. We did end up building, and, in the end, the Lord blessed us with a 5,000 square foot home (the homes we had been looking at purchasing were generally 2500 square feet or so -we've got 4 young children). The basement will be turned into the "home for unwed mothers" in God's timing. Often it's easy to become overwhelmed with such a large home and feel like we are undeserving. Also, because we moved to this home from such a small home, it often feels like, financially, it was not a sound move. However, I am absolutely confident that this is where the Lord called us to be, so I choose to believe that financial issues will not become a concern. I know that my God can take care of that without a problem. The issue left now is that we have somewhat stagnated over completing the basement work. In the midst of this, we had promised the basement to a friend from church who has three kids and is living in subsidized housing of about 500 square feet. Our basement alone is about 1200, so, since we knew we were going to turn it into an apartment anyway, we figured we could help her out and allow her to stay there while we waited for the "unwed mothers" thing to materialize. No matter what we tried, we just couldn't make it work financially to finsh the basement off for her to move in. It became clear, over time that the Lord was putting those roadblocks in our way because we were following our own direction and not God's. What we had offered to do was a "good" thing, but it was not "God's" thing. We have since told this friend of our disobedience in this area and apologized for offering something we never should have offered. Now, I think it is simply a matter of becoming more diligent about praying over this ministry and waiting on the Lord to give more clear direction. I have not really been praying over this home for unwed mothers for quite awhile. It is time again to "pick up the torch" and allow God to speak to us in this matter. I appreciate this study already, and I'm only a week into it. I know that it will be a wonderful stepping stone toward helping me become more obedient. PS - Just a note of encouragement to any and all who read this. A few months ago, my wife developed a very large breast lump. Over a period of two months it grew to the size of an egg. Very large, very well defined. Physically, if it hadn't been so painful, it was actually possible to "grab" the lump. It was actually "measured" via ultrasound by the surgeon on two occassions and it continued to grow. Praise God! We were scheduled for surgery, but received a CD from Dr. Gary Coller with healing scriptures on it. We listened to that CD over and over for a period of a few days. Finally, two days before the surgery my wife and I sat down and had a good talk. We decided it was time to get serious about our Faith. Did we really believe our God was a God who heals? Well, we made a commitment to believe. Even if we had to remind ourselves every 5 minutes that we were healed, we were going to choose to believe God had answered our prayer for healing. For the next two days we literally walked around the house reminding ourselves that we had received the healing and rebuking the deception of Satan in this matter. The night before the surgery the lump was still there and as big as ever. The morning of the surgery the lump was still there, but we were choosing to believe the surgeon was going to find nothing that morning. Our God is AWESOME!!!! Believe it or not, even though the surgeon could not feel a definable lump when it came time for surgery, whe went in anyway and went on a treasure hunt. Well, that part's not soo good, but we had committed to this thing from start to finish and had decided that if surgery had to be done for someone to come face to face with our God, that we were up for it (easier for me than for my wife, that I'm certain of). At any rate, she could not find a lump. The egg sized mass was GONE! And when I say the size of an egg, I'm talking an extra large Grade A egg. Praise God for his faithfulness. Don't give up, don't lose heart. Just believe. And believe and believe and believe until the lord counts it to you as righteousness and proves your faith strong. I think it's worth saying that I believe Abraham probably had to recommit to sacrificing Isaac about every 30 seconds on his way to their destination. As a father, I cannot imagine taking that long journey and not thinking a thousand times, "You know, I could just turn around and act like I never heard God. How could I possibly sacrifice my son?" Those of you parents out there, I think can certainly relate to what I'm saying. But, even though I'm certain that Abraham probably had second thoughts a thousand times along the way, he followed through, HE was faithful and obedient to God. I don't think God sees our obedience or disobedience in terms of how many times our flesh tries to deceive us, but moreso on whether we stand firm and finish the race. Temptations and deceptions will come against us daily but our level of obedience and love for God is determined by our resolve to overcome and/or run away from those temptations so that we remain pure and true before God. Anyway, hope that's not too off topic, but it is actually the story of Abraham and Isaac that God used to show me that faith is a walk, a journey, and sometimes you wander a bit from one side to the other of the path (we're only human). The question is, do you make an effort to find the path again (do you seek God) or do you continue in your own way and down your own path, the one that doesn't require you to put your full trust in the God of the universe, the one that allows you to remain in control.