GOD AND A CROSSROAD: KNOWING GOD THROUGH THE STORY OF ABRAM

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

Michael so wisely says, “The truth of God is gestures and kindness. This is the essence of God’s truth.” How clearly it is evidenced in this week’s study.

 

Last week, Michael and I left Abram and Lot at the dramatic moment when they had, as Scripture says, “parted company,” after having been together like father and son, for such a long time. As they came to the juncture where Lot would go toward Sodom and Abram toward Canaan, there was an even more crucial crossroad at hand. God, Himself, was presented with two very different paths, one pointing toward judgment and wrath and the other in the direction of mercy and grace.

 

Some, not yet knowing this passage of Scripture, might decide that the logical outcome would be as follows:

 

1) Abram had disobeyed God by taking detours to Harran and Egypt, instead of going straight to Canaan as God directed.

2) Predictably, he had fallen further into sin in these places, by acquiring there, great wealth for himself and for his nephew, Lot. God had said for Abram to leave behind material goods and people, not acquire more.

3) Because Abram and Lot just had too many people and possessions, the land of God, Canaan, couldn’t accommodate all of this.

4) A division was caused by the aforementioned situation and resulted in their having to separate.

5) Conclusion: Therefore, since Abram brought all this trouble on himself, God would come down on him with judgment and wrath. After all, we’re in the Old Testament aren’t we? Isn’t that the Biblical residence of a judgmental and wrathful God? Doesn’t everyone know this?

 

Yes, all of the above is factually correct UNTIL we reach the conclusion itself. This is where the crossroad we spoke of comes in. God had a clear choice. Abram had sinned and had it coming to him to experience God’s justifiable punishment and wrath. This was choice # 1.

 

We can only surmise that God didn’t know that, in the Old Testament, He was supposed to be mean-spirited and judgmental. Having said this quite tongue-in-cheek, let’s move on to how our God the Father, in fact, selected Choice #2.

 

In a moment of such sweetness that it touches the deepest part of our hearts, Michael and I will look to the verses that show our Heavenly Father having felt such compassion for Abram that He comforted him in Abram’s loss of Lot, a nephew who was the only son he had ever known, by saying the following:

 

“The LORD said to Abram, AFTER LOT HAD PARTED FROM HIM, ‘Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and YOUR OFFSPRING forever. I WILL MAKE YOUR OFFSPRING LIKE THE DUST OF THE EARTH, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your OFFSPRING could be counted…”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 13:14-16) NIV

 

At a sad moment, “AFTER” Lot had gone and, with him, the only hope Abram felt he had to have a son, a circumstance precipitated by his own greed and disobedience, God says to him and says so sweetly, so lovingly, (not speaking of condemnation and how he’s just reaping what he has so foolishly sown) that, “Abram, let’s talk about your OFFSPRING, you now in your senior years! You’re going to have offspring – so many offspring that counting them will be like counting the very dust particles of the earth! You will be the father of too many children to even count!”

 

What an example of God’s personal relationship with us. He meets us where we are. He didn’t say to Abram, a man with the void of childlessness bearing down on his heart, “Hey, Abram, I’m going to give you plenty of livestock or houses, or worse yet, lots more laws so you can learn your lesson better next time.” Instead, God perceived what Abram didn’t have and longed to have, and gave him that. And, once He did this, God didn’t say, “I’ll give you another nephew, a son substitute.” God is lavish, generous beyond our wildest imagination. He said, “Abram, you want offspring? Here, would you be happy if I gave you so many that they will literally be uncountable!”

 

THIS, is who the God of the Old Testament is! I have heard one of my Bible Study heroes, Beth Moore, speak of similar instances in her own life, where God just gets so lavish and so extravagant that He boggles her mind. She says, at these amazing outpourings of blessings, “Well, I guess God was just showing out!”

 

How perfectly accurate this is. With Abram heartbroken, then comes his Heavenly Father, like a Daddy who just cannot do enough for his child, and outdoes himself with gifts that are stunning, specific to the need and which just cause one to fall to his or her knees and worship this God who, instead of just begrudgingly granting absolution, is out to charm us with His generosity, His winsomeness, His love. 

 

And that’s what Abram did:

 

“So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre in Hebron, where he pitched his tents. THERE HE BUILT AN ALTAR TO THE LORD.”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 13:18) NIV

 

And he lived happily ever after…Well, as we know, that’s not exactly how the story, the saga of mankind, goes. Honestly, it’s a much better story than that, a God-breathed story. As stated last week, but bearing repeating,  Michael says,

 

 “The Bible is all about failures and hurdles, stepping stones, building blocks that make knowledge and lead to truth.”

 

Such a hurtle, brought on by a failure was about to present itself. For, Abram’s idyllic life by an altar under great and beautiful trees, was about to be interrupted for “Lot had pitched his tents near Sodom.” There, it was not trees but war on the horizon and Lot was about to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As Michael pointed out, “Lot had taken the easy path.” In Scripture, these kinds of paths often deceive and lead, not to paradise but to trouble.

 

True to life in any age, when trouble comes to a loved one, it pulls, into the maelstrom, the ones who love those in jeopardy. This would be no exception. Abram would be taken to his own crossroad, one that would risk life and limb and, therefore, the very mission of God to save all of humanity.

 

We’re hoping you will join us next week as the drama of the ages continues, and as we all come to a truer read of God the Almighty, the God of love, IN THE OLD TESTAMENT!

 

Michael often says,

 

“If we want to find God, we  have to learn Who He really is.”

 

With God the Father, He is showcased in the OLD Testament. May we be divinely guided in this, a divine appointment.