By Robert Seawall

In our Genesis text for this coming Sunday (Genesis 12.1-4) we encounter for the first time the call of God to Abraham (Abram). The call was to ‘go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’ Genesis 12.1 I was reminded of a book I read many years ago by Everett (Terry) Fullam called How To Walk With God. In it he suggested that to follow God often means to leave the familiar and go to the uncharted. I still remember one of his opening remarks. What did the Lord say to Abram? Get out! The double motion of getting out of one state of affairs and going in the direction of another is directed by the Lord God. ‘Get out of your country…your family…your father’s house.’ God sought to create a people who would respond to Him. He sought a people who would choose Him as their God, even as He had already chosen them as His people.

What strikes me as we move into this second week of Lent is the reality that to answer the call of God could mean to get out of some unhealthy familiar places and or situations. To leave behind the destructive and move into new, perhaps uncharted places of becoming whole. This could be unhealthy friendships, bad work environments, dysfunctional family relationships, or maybe just plain old behavior patterns that just need to stop. Get out! That was God’s call too Abraham and it could very well be our immediate call today.

For Abraham he was asked to grow up and leave home, not in a wipe the dirt off your feet kind of a way, but in a time to take responsibility for my walk with God and follow where He leads obedient way. Hanging around just because it is comfortable and a bit fearful to step out into the unknown has hindered the people of God from realizing God’s promises for generations.

This Lent, why don’t we break the cycle and join Abraham in his faithful response and go. Go where the Lord of life leads us and trust that while it will lead us through the desert and wilderness, we will also be fed and a table will be set for us in the midst of it.

 

The Rev. Robert Seawell who is the Dean of St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Andalusia.