Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Destination Unknown

While things have been quiet here on my blog for the past couple of months, things in my life haven't been as quiet.  Without going into much detail here, our ministry is transitioning.  God has closed a door to ministry right now in Zanesville.  And while we don't know what that looks like, I have a new appreciation for the story of Abram's call in Genesis 12: 

"12 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

 4 
So Abram went..."
Genesis 12:1, 4a, NIV

The amazing thing about this story... what is dawning on me and what I am learning... Abram didn't know where he was going.  We often read Genesis 12 through the eyes of the rest of the book of Genesis.  We know where Abram, later Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and the rest of the crew end up.  We know that Abram will have a son and be asked to sacrifice his son.  We know that that son, Isaac, will have two sons, Jacob and Esau.  We know about Jacob's 12 sons and how they sold their brother into slavery and how the whole crew ended up in Egypt.  

But for Abram, in chapter 12, he didn't know that.  He didn't know where he was going.  He didn't know what the end would look like.  

I know that anxiety right now.  
I don't know where this road will lead.  

Sometimes with faith... we don't know.  We are called... sent... by God to someplace... unknown.  And God doesn't give us the GPS coordinates or the address of the final destination.  Sometimes God just asks us to go... 

And He expects us to go.  

Hebrews 11 shares the same insight about Abraham... "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. (Hebrews 11:8, NIV, emphasis added)

So... where is God calling you?  
Where is God calling me?  

For now... only God knows... 
JC