Pit Stops – Genesis 11:31-32

Regina’s Note: Eight years ago, I moved from a place of prosperity and comfort. It was not my choice to leave that part of my life, I was moved.  It was not my choice to stop here in my own personal “middle ground”. However, this middle ground,  neither prosperous or fulfilling, has grown very comfortable to me. Receiving the call yesterday to move on from here is scary. I had grown “settled” here.

This message sat half-written for a week, due to “unrelated things”.  Yesterday, I got news which made this my late-breaking story. I sit here almost giggling at the irony of God’s ways. I suppose at this point it is beyond redundant to say that the Lord has everything timed perfectly. To ever lose amazement for this God who holds everything in His hands would be tragic. I stand amazed today. Thank You Lord for holding me in Your palm, always.

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³¹ Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot^, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law⁽ Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there. ³² Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.

Point A: Ur, in the Chaldeans, was a fertile land located by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Given it’s location, it was likely a bustling commercial area. It would have been a place of prosperity, of economic safety.

Point B: Canaan was the land “flowing with milk and honey”. It was the promised land for Abram and his ultimate destination for the nation of God to be birthed. It was the goal, the original destination.

Harran, where Terah stopped and settled, was neither here nor there. It was not the place of prosperity that God called him out of;  yet it was not the Promised Land Abram was destined for. We do not know why Terah stopped in Harran, but he did, and Abram (later named Abraham) stopped with him.. This stop along the way was Terah’s, not Abram’s, but Abram adopted it.

Much of what happened in Harran is lost, but we do know that although Abram and Sarai were married, they did not have children during this time. They grew in wealth and possession, they had servants and relatives. But their experience in Harran was one primarily of waiting – their promise, both of a land to live in permanently , and a family of their own, was not to take place here. It did, however, become comfortable. Although perhaps it was not a stop of their choosing originally, it became where they settled.

They settled, in more ways than one. Canaan still beckoned as their promise, but they lived for years in Harran, delaying their destiny.

Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” We often find ourselves in these places. We are comfortable, but we have a gnawing suspicion that there is more for us. Still, when God calls us out, when He asks us to pack up and move, we have reluctance. Not because of anything compelling keeping us in our own “Harran”, but because of the comfort we find in the everyday life we have built and we know.

Terah died in Harran. He never completed his journey to Canaan, whether because he was afraid, complacent, or had simply become comfortable in the middle ground. But this was not to be Abram’s story. Hebrews 11:8-10 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. “

Isaiah 48:17 This is what the Lord says, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow.” God tells us in His Word that He knows the plans He has for us, and they are good. (Jeremiah 29:11). But when God’s plans are not exactly aligned with ours, the tension is palpable. When we are asked to relinquish our understanding of how our lives should go, and allow God to lead us, we are stepping from a place of familiarity into the great unknown. If we do not listen, we will live, comfortably perhaps, in the middle ground. But we will never reach our promise. Isaiah 25:1 “Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise Your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.”

We can easily fool ourselves into thinking that God’s plans must be the same as our carefully laid out plans. Often, we think our way of thinking, our plans and our dreams are the way we should go, they make sense to us. So when His call comes, and it doesn’t look like our plan, we think something has gone wrong. To the contrary, for a disciple of Christ, things are going very right – exactly the way He says they should. When you are committed to walking in the Will of God, you are guided by His hand, even down paths that seem uncertain to you. He knows exactly where He is going.  God asks Abram to pick up his family and possessions and go. Abram isn’t sure of the path nor the journey, but he follows God without question.

Galatians 5:25 “Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.” The Spirit does not call us to do ordinary or safe things. All those things, we can do very well without God’s help. No, the Spirit calls us to do things that stretch us, that challenge us, that make us move. The Spirit calls us to do things we never would, and never could, unless God were by our side. And notice these are not only “spiritual things”, the scripture says He leads us through every part of our lives – jobs, families, challenges, sickness.  When we sit in the middle ground, God’s spirit is limited by our timidness. When we walk on to our promise, God’s  power has the opportunity to shine through. . 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

John 14:6 Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. The previous statement is one of the most uncomfortable in the Bible. It takes us out of the “middle ground”.  It forces us to say that although our status quo belief system is comfortable, that God’s plan of redemption is different, precise, and has only one option. It seems popular to say that God’s ways, explained in this scripture, are somehow “less tolerant” than the way we think.

But the Lord always has the right path laid out.  In our spiritual life, as in our physical life, we will each get that call to pack up the old thought process and believe what He says.  He often asks us to move onto something completely foreign, completely unknown…but that which He has promised to us. The call of God can be uncomfortable and intimidating, but it holds incredible destiny if you will get up and walk.

Today, Realize: As we walk through our lives, it is easy to veer off to the side of the road and rest in the middle ground sometimes. Although there may be a valid reason to take a break, God simply does not leave people in the same place forever. He expects us to grow spiritually, closer and closer into the image and likeness of His Son. In that process we may be called to leave careers or hometowns; we may be asked to do a job that challenges the boundaries of our capabilities. Whatever your call, remember that if God promised you something, He will bring it to pass in His power and abilities. He will put us on the road and prepare the destination – He does require us to start walking. Trust that His Spirit will lead you in all things, that He has good plans for you. These are steadfast promises, even when things look bleak to our eyes.

Be encouraged that God will always equip you to do what He has asked. Whatever the journey, He has promised He will walk it with you. Stopping by the side of the road is sometimes inevitable, but sitting by the road you are supposed to be travelling is not your destiny. Getting back on the road, no matter how uncertain the journey, is the only way to get to the Promised Land of all that God has in store for you.

Psalm 40:5 Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.