Home Tools for your Journey June 1

Sunday, June 1

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.” ...So Abram went.
—Genesis 12:1, 4a

Once upon a time, some four thousand years ago, there lived in northwest Mesopotamia a man named  Abram, a descendant of Noah, an heir of Adam before him. This man, whose lineage reached back to the creation of the human race, left everything he knew—his country, his family and his ancestral home—to travel toward an unknown destination in response to God’s command. 

In doing so, Abram (whom God later renamed Abraham, as a sign of his new life forged according to the covenant) became the archetype of a faithful human obedience to God’s call–no matter how strange that call might seem, or how difficult the response.

We can see many of our own daily departures into an unknown future by the light of Abram’s going forth from Haran. What else are our lives of faith but journeys into uncertainty, in response to the sometimes bewildering call of God?

Unexpected travel invitations, improbable dancing lessons, summons to go beyond what we know. These are the very stuff our lives are made of.

Dear God of Abraham and Sarah, and all who leave home for your sake, help us to listen for your call to “go forth.” Give us strength and courage to leave what we think we know behind, and set out in trust to go where you would send us.

The Signposts for June are written by Deborah Smith Douglas and originally appeared on explorefaith.org in May 2005.