Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” So Abram went away as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Genesis 12:1-4 NASB
I have to take a minute here. I can’t help but imagine receiving this message from God – this blessing. Can you imagine? I kind of get this idea of feeling invincible, and the movie The Titanic (1997) comes to mind when one of the characters stands at the bow of the ship and yells out, I’m the king of the world! That might be how I would feel if God told me that He would bless me, my name would be great, I would be a blessing to others, all the families of the world would be blessed through me, and He would make me a great nation (see – king of the world).
It’s all good things, right? And pity the fool who tries to curse me – I wouldn’t even have to retaliate! God would take care of it. God will bless and God will protect. That wraps up the second installment of Abraham’s Journey, see you next week! You guys know me too well. There’s so much to unpack here. I appreciate your joining me in learning more about Abraham. As usual, I have been doing some digging.
At this point in Abram’s life, as stated in the passage above, he was 75 years old and finally leaving home. Sarai was about 9 years younger, so we know she wasn’t a spring chicken. She was mid-60’s and very beautiful (Genesis 12:11) but she was barren (Genesis 11:30). I keep picturing a young couple just starting out, with their whole life ahead of them. Typically, when you first leave home, you don’t have a whole lot to your name, but times and cultures were different then. Abram, also, wasn’t typical in that God singled him out.
He and Sarai weren’t young or just starting out. They were established. They had servants and possessions, they had probably been married for more than 3 or 4 decades, and they were embarking on a journey full of unknowns – all as a response in faith to God. They had plenty but God saw fit to increase their tents (Isaiah 54:2). They had been established, but God wanted them established in Him.
In Genesis 12:2, God tells Abram that He will bless (verb) him and make him a blessing (noun). Remember in grade school when the teacher assigned diagramming sentences? Oh, how I hated it! Don’t get me wrong – I love words and writing but I hated diagramming them. It’s like algebraic linear equations. When will you ever use them in real life unless you go into a specified field that uses them? Never! But there is something to be said for basic parts of speech.
God is going to do something (verb) so that we can be something (noun). Hmm, this sounds familiar. Verbs are used to describe an action, state, or occurrence. A noun is a word used to identify any class of people, places, or things. Let’s take a look at another translation of part of the above passage:
And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you [abundantly], and make your name great (exalted, distinguished); and you shall be a blessing [a source of great good to others]; and I will bless (do good for, benefit) those who bless you, and I will curse [that is, subject to My wrath and judgment] the one who curses (despises, dishonors, has contempt for) you. And in you all the families (nations) of the earth will be blessed.” Genesis 12:2-3 AMP
Now Abram is told to leave what he knows to go into the unknown. He obeys. He’s promised that God’s got his back – he needn’t worry about what might come. Then came a famine to the land. Abram made the decision for his family to spend some time in Egypt. This wasn’t a move based on divine inspiration, but of fear of not having enough during the famine. I suppose, over the course of over 400 miles, that Abram might have forgotten the promises from God. But how do you explain what God tells him after they arrived in Shechem – before they went to Egypt?
Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanites were in the land at that time. And the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. Genesis 12:6-7 NASB
Let me ask a silly question: should Abram have feared for his life if God was going to promise him descendants? Remember: he didn’t have any children of his own yet because his wife was barren (they were getting up there in age, too). He’s promised a descendant. He’s promised that he will be a great nation. He’s shown the land that his kiddos will inherit. But he doubts… or forgets… simply put, he’s an imperfect man.
They venture to Egypt (wrong turn), but Abram is afraid for his life (but God promised!). With Sarai being such a beautiful woman, Abram reasons that he’s safer as her brother (actually, they were half-siblings, so it was a half-truth which boils down to being a lie) so that’s what they pretended their relationship was – brother and sister (another wrong turn). Of course, Pharoah is told about her beauty, and he takes her into his palace as one of his wives. Because Abram and Sarai are only siblings, Abram is treated well because of Sarai and is given livestock, both male and female (profitable with increasing the herds with offspring).
God intervenes to preserve Sarai. They’re commanded by Pharoah to leave. I can only surmise that they also experience an increase (it doesn’t tell us that they had to give back any of the livestock). Not to mention that they left with their lives, too! But God is gracious and turned the wrong turns into good things for Abram.
Abram and Lot each had such rich households that the land could not support them both (perhaps Lot was in such close proximity that he was experiencing the blessings, too?). They eventually parted ways, and this is when the Lord speaks again to Abram. In Genesis 13:14-18, God tells Abram to look in all directions and see the land. That land would belong to his descendants forever. He goes further and tells Abram that his descendants would be like the dust of the earth – can you count each grain of sand? I live in a beach town and cannot imagine having to count even a cup full of sand.
In these 2 chapters, Abram has gone from being established to uprooted (obediently so) to finding his new home. He might be thinking that God hasn’t had to do much. Abram still has no descendants, and his wife is barren. But God did deliver him from the hand of Pharoah (he could have been killed!) and riches were added to him. But God has made some promises that haven’t come to fruit yet, hasn’t He?
God is going to bless (verb) in order for Abram to be a blessing (noun). How many promises do we have from God? Do we trust them all? Do we know them all? C’mon, I don’t think I know even half of them! And the few that I do know, I struggle with trusting. I’m personally working on trusting God with health and finances. Allergy season came in like a wrecking ball this year and the 2-year molars have decided to attack our youngest at the same time as the pollen. Those are very basic, and I’ve read the promises in Scripture, but sometimes there are things that need to be uprooted before we can see the fruit of being established.
Abram’s house wasn’t just being relocated, but his opinion of God was being relocated, too. When we respond to God, it’s usually an action – a verb – that we call repentance. It’s a change of direction; a moving away from one thing and moving toward something else instead. Abram responded to God by obeying Him. He relocated to a foreign land that he had never seen before! What is there in our lives that needs to be relocated? There might be a lot of wrong turns in your life, but God wants you to go in a new direction. He’s wanting to establish you in Him. How will you respond?