Genesis 12:1-3 and 28:10-15

In both the Old and New Testaments we see a variety of “call narratives.”  In these accounts a particular person is called by God to do a specific task which will bring Him glory.  Here we have the call of Abram (who later becomes Abraham).  This is one of my favorite moments in the Bible.  While I’m pretty sure that God has been working His plan of restoring creation already, this is the first moment where I feel like it is really out in the open.  Not only that but it also makes it clear that humanity is going to play a major role in restoring that which we broke in the first place.  Such grace at work!

The problem that arose in the Garden was that Adam and Eve’s relationship with God was broken, they were thrown out of their physical home and they ceased to understand they belonged to each other.  When God calls Abram He says “I will be in this with you” (restored relationship), “I will take you to a land I have for you” (a new physical home), and “I will make you a great nation” (I will restore not just your sense of connectedness, but I will prosper that connectedness across the generations).  What a gift of grace considering He could have just blown it all up and started from scratch.

The only catch is that Abram must make a decision.  He must decide if he is going to trust God.  In fact he must decide if he is going to trust this God that he doesn’t even know very well yet.  If Abram is going to play his part in God’s plan of redemption and restoration then he must go away from what is familiar and comfortable to him and trust that God knows what He is doing.

This is the same call to us.  God will use us in His plan and in the process will knit us back together in our relationship with Him, He will give us a place to call home and he will reconnect us with the rest of his people.  But it also requires us to turn from what seems familiar and comfortable and trust that God is leading us into something that will not simply be familiar but which will connect with us in ways that we never thought possible.

The final passage - the story of Jacob’s ladder – is a reminder that this is a multi-generational promise.  How we respond to God’s promises of restoration and belonging today will have an impact on the next generations of our family as well.  That sounds kind of heavy I know, but what parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt or whatever doesn’t want to leave a rich legacy to the next generation.  There is no greater gift to our God, ourselves and the next generations of our family than to trust in God and His son Jesus and faithfully step into the unknown.