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Go West, Old Man
(GENESIS 12:1-9)
Periodically Carol and I have a discussion about retire-ment. While it is still twenty years away for us, it is certainly appropriate to plan for it now financially and personally. During our twenty-five years of marriage both of us have been wanderers given my profession, so we really are not attached to one particular geographical place, so we ponder where we might like to retire, and how those plans might change considering where our children, and hopefully by that time, our grandchildren will be living. We are planning for retirement knowing that plans do not always go as anticipated. It is important to plan for the future, but we must never forget that the Bible reminds us time and time again that God has a habit of messing up our plans, even plans for retirement. Such is the case in Genesis chapter twelve.
Abraham is enjoying retirement. Of course, retirement as we know it is a modern phenomenon; but still, at seventy-five years of age, Abraham was enjoying the fruits of many years of labor. He was also quite wealthy (Genesis 13:1) and he was living out his later years in the land of his birth. Is it possible for us to imagine how unsettling it must have been to be told to go west to an unknown land while living in retirement in the land of one’s birth, and having no personal need to settle anywhere else?
Every individual called by God in the Bible is not expecting to be called, and neither is he or she anticipating where God will lead and what will need to be done. The call is always a surprise, whether it is Abraham going to a strange land, or a young man named Saul hiding in order not to be anointed king of Israel, or whether it is another man named Saul centuries later being told on the Damascus Road that he is about to become part of the very people he is persecuting. The call of God is never anticipated.
How difficult this is for us to embrace. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we like life to be predictable. We enjoy the routine, and we do not want anything or anyone getting in the way of what we have planned. When the call of God comes into our lives, we discover that the world is not fixed, that at a moment’s notice life takes a turn in a different direction.
Of course, not all surprises in life are good. I remember many years ago speaking with a woman in her seventies. She told me how she and her husband had planned for retirement, and how much they loved to travel. After his working days were behind him, they would go to places they had always wanted to see, but had never been. Then just a few months before his last day on the job, he died unexpectedly. She never traveled again after his death.
While Abraham’s call was no doubt a surprise, it was a call in which God would bless him and his descendants. There would be difficulties to be sure, but in the grand scheme of God’s plan, Abraham would be able to look back on his summons and know that it was a good thing he left his home to travel to the place where God would lead. The call of God reveals that there are indeed wonderful divine possibilities in a world where it is thought to be impossible. Such possibilities offer hope, not only for the one called, but for all those who will be touched by that call.
The call of God is never for the individual’s sake alone. Abraham’s children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and so on through the generations all the way through the centuries, would be blessed because of Abraham’s obedience in going west. We must never forget that God always has more in mind than just us.
– God calls Abraham to be the Father of a great nation.
– God calls Moses to lead the children of Israel out of slavery into the land he promised to Abraham.
– God call the Judges to lead the people in righteousness.
– God calls King David to make God’s people after his own heart.
– God calls the prophets to remind Israel of its calling.
– God calls the Apostle Paul to take the message of salvation to the Gentiles, something not previously done.
– God calls Jesus to save the world.
An essential part of Christian character is confident trust in God. The writer of Genesis twelve indicates that Abraham receives the call and responds in obedience. There is no evidence of a conversation between the two where Abraham attempts to get out of what he is now being told to do. He hears the call and answers it. Abraham steps out in faith, not knowing where this new journey will take him and what will actually happen along the way. Nevertheless, he has come to trust in the God who leads, and so he confidently sets out in faith from the land of his birth. This is why St. Paul can say to the Romans, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3).
I am not suggesting that it is wrong to raise questions concerning what it is that God desires of us. Moses does this on the mountain as he stands in the presence of God in the burning bush. What I am saying is that spiritual maturity is revealed in our unwavering willingness to follow where God leads, even though we do not know where the journey will ultimately take us, even though we cannot see the end of the path we trod, and even though the details of the future are out of our grasp.
God may call some to travel to places unknown, but God will call others to the journey of faith right at home. The point is not where God will or will not lead; the issue is not what the particulars are of God’s will for us. The matter is our obedience to the call no matter where it is or what it is or why it is. Yet, the call of God is not as much an order to obey, but a personal invitation from God to participate in the plans of God to transform, to remake the world.
In his novel The Testament, John Grisham writes of Rachel Lane, the daughter of a billionaire. The very wealthy man dies leaving an incredible inheritance to her, even though he did not know her as he fathered her out of wedlock, and was simply not involved in his daughter’s life. In attempting to find her in order to inform her of her newly inherited wealth, the billionaire’s attorney discovers that she is a missionary in the remote jungle villages of Brazil. In her calling as a missionary, Rachel has sacrificed a life of comfort and plenty. So the question that permeates throughout the book is whether or not she will turn her back on her calling when presented with the kind of wealth that will give her anything of a material nature she could ever want. She not only rejects the wealth offered her in order to remain in Brazil, but she does so without any seeming temptation to do otherwise, shocking the billionaire’s attorney, who cannot imagine anyone refusing such a fortune.2 She chooses to participate in the plans of God.
There are sacrifices to be made in answering the call of God, to be sure, but when one considers what is gained as a result of being faithful, what we give up cannot come close to what we receive in the way of blessings. God calls Abraham to sacrifice, but in the process God plans to bless Abraham in ways he could not possibly imagine before his journey with God; and in so blessing Abraham, God has blessed us as Abraham’s spiritual children.
In my college days, I actually witnessed someone receive a call like Abraham. There was an English professor at the college, who was well liked by the students. His last year of teaching prior to retirement was my senior year. He and his wife had financially planned for retirement years before, and they had their travel plans worked out for the next few years; and, of course, there would be the visits to the homes of their children and grandchildren.
But God messed up their plans. In the middle of that year, just a few months before the end of spring semester, both the professor and his wife received a call from God to the mission field in Africa. They informed their very supportive children of the situation, and completely changed their plans to the plan God had in mind for them.
After I graduated from college and went off to seminary, I lost contact with them, but I can remember sitting in chapel listening to his story and silently praying to God that I would always be as willing to answer God’s call, whatever it might be and wherever it might take me. On the eve of retirement, that faithful couple answered the call of God, and were no doubt a blessing to the many people they served in Africa; and they also blessed a young college student, who was so inspired by their courage and their confident trust in the God who leads, that he put himself at the disposal of God’s call as well.
PRAYER: Lord God, as you