(Abram and Sarai have been on the road a long time, following the call to find a place in Canaan, make a home there, and raise a family that will make its mark and leave a legacy of good in a world in need of good legacies. But the journey has not worked out as they thought it would, and the dream they lived for seems unachievable.)
Theme: Looking for a legacy
Abram is having one
of those days. It’s not that he doesn’t
believe. It’s just that he is having trouble
seeing the value and worth of his own role in God’s plan.
He knows he is part
of something bigger than himself – a journey to a far-off land of milk and
honey – the land of Canaan, making a home there, and raising a family that will
make its mark and leave a positive legacy in the life of a world sorely in need
of positive legacies. The journey began years
before in the city of Ur in the land of the Chaldeans – what is now southern Iraq. And it was his father, Terah, who started
it.
Terah lived in Ur with
his three sons – Abram and his wife, who was also his half-sister and was barren;
Nahor and his wife, Milcah; and Haran, who died, leaving his son – Abram’s
grandson, Lot, fatherless. And it was
Terah who started the whole journey west in search of new life in Canaan,
taking Lot, and Abram and the Sarai with him.
It was a grand vision, but Canaan was 1000 miles away and Terah never
got there. He got only as far as the
city of Haran – about half-way, where he stopped and decided to settle.
So then it was up to
Abram. After settling in with his father
for some years in Haran and building up his herds and household, Abram heard
the call of God to continue the journey – to go west to Canaan, make a home
there, and raise a family that would be a source and a channel of blessing for
all the Earth. So Abram did just
that. It was his turn now to play his
part in the grand design of Almighty God to make the world good.
And the plan really
is bigger than him – bigger even than just his family, because along the way to
the land of Canaan, then beyond it to Egypt because he finds Canaan occupied, and
then a little while later back to Canaan, he meets people of other cultures and
traditions who also are in touch with Almighty God who works to make the world
good, and they help and even bless Abram along his way.
So he knows the plan
is a big one. The dream he is following
is as big as God’s love for Earth and all its life. And just as it started before him, it will go
on after him, and it will be done, praise be to God.
It’s just that right
now, Abram is having trouble seeing the value and worth of his own part in
it. Because what has he done? What has he really accomplished?
He’s continued what
his father began; he’s left Haran behind and journeyed with Sarai and Lot as
far as Canaan. They made it that
far. But when they get there, the land
is already occupied, so they just stop for a bit, build a shrine at Shechem,
and keep moving.
They go as far as
Egypt – as good a place as any, but along the way and in Egypt there are a few spots
of trouble with some of the kings and rulers in the lands they enter, wanting
Sarai for themselves and Abram’s life being a little in jeopardy because of it.
So they head back to
Canaan, this time near Hebron where finally there’s a place they can settle. But once they are there, tensions come up
between Lot’s household and Abram’s and they split up and go their separate
ways, with Lot choosing for himself the better portion of the land they have,
leaving Abram a bit of scrub land to live in.
Then Lot finds
himself caught in disputes between rival kings around the land he’s chosen to
live in. He’s kidnapped, loses what has,
and Abram has to go rescue him. Abram also
has other kings in the area trying to make him their subject, and he really begins
to wonder just how much of a failure he has proven to be.
He knows he is not
alone. He has God and the call of God
for the journey he’s on and the plan that he’s part of. He also has his whole household. He has built up his herds and increased his
servants, and has a lot of resources and support in the world for anything he
does.
So things can and
will continue very well even without him once he is gone. And maybe that’s part of what bothers
him.
Because in addition
to all the other problems and failures that he feels, Sarai is still
barren. Lot is a fatherless disaster, but
even worse is that Abram is not a father himself. He and Sarai have no child to carry on the
family name. So Abram really wonders
about the value and worth of his own life and life story. When he dies all that he has will pass to
Eliezer of Damascus, his head servant, the CEO of the household he has built
up. And what then will be his place in
the story of God’s plan for the world to be blessed and made good?
Like Abram, do you
ever have one of those days – or months, or years – when you really wonder
about your place in God’s good plan? You
don’t doubt or disbelieve that God has a good purpose for Earth, and will make
life good in all the world. But do you wonder
some times about your own place in it – whether you play any important and
lasting part at all in its being realized?
Do you find yourself
in your own way feeling, maybe even praying what Abram does: “O Lord God, I am
childless still – and how shall I not be always? I have brought nothing good – no new life
that I wanted to bring, into this world.
When I die, my heir will be Eliezer of Damascus, a slave born in my
house! O Lord God, is my life really worth
anything at all?”
And God says, “Come
outside! Come out from the smallness of
what you are feeling and into the darkness of the night. Look up – look toward the heavens and count
the stars, if you can. So shall your
descendants be.”
We know, of course,
that the promise came true. Not right
away. It comes a few chapters, and few
more steps and even mis-steps later. But
by the good will of God Sarai does conceive and bear a son, she becomes a
mother and Abram a father to Isaac, and in their lives the good will of God for
making life on Earth good is fulfilled.
Abram is no
hero. He is not a solitary warrior of
faith. He is much like us – a single
person in a long line and great company of God’s chosen people … living out his
part as best he can … not really doubting God’s good purpose, but some days
wondering if he has any part in it, if his life has any real value or worth in
the greater story being lived out beyond him.
But when he brings
his self-wondering to God, he believes what God tells him – that yes, his life
is important … that his place in God’s good will is one that only he can fill …
that what’s inside him and what he is able to express in the world will bear
good fruit … and that when the story of God’s good will being done in the world
is told, his name and his part in it will not be forgotten.
Can we believe it
too? Those days when we just can’t see
the value or worth of our part in God’s plan of blessing the Earth and making
life good, can we believe what God and others around us see and affirm of the
value and worth of our life, and our part in God’s good plan?
