Last week I was explaining to a 6 year old boy what life was like before we had mobile telephones. How we would use the house phone if we had one, or go down the street to use the phone box. (Showing my age now….but I remember going into phone boxes and pressing Button B to see if there was any uncollected change that the last user had forgotten to collect – what we would do to get a penny!)
If you rang someone and got no answer you would just try later on in the day. Far less hurried and instant than now. And what did we do before texts and email? We wrote letters and waited for replies. And before Sat Nav? We used a map. We could read them and that told us where to go. We had A to Z maps of cities with each street easily found – or we gave instructions to our visitors…..”turn left at the pub, take the third right, round a corner, past a postbox, fourth house on the left with a green door”. Before YouTube and Wikipedia we got the information we needed from a book. Fascinating really. Life in the olden days – as my 6 year old friend calls it. Lol
For us who are believers, we still have a book that we go to, even though we might keep it in digital form. Even when it might not be to hand, there are other believers around who can remind us of what the bible says.
But what if we didn’t have the Bible? I don’t mean what if it wasn’t available, or what if it was banned. I mean what if we lived before it had even been written. How would that affect our relationship with God and our ability to know what He is saying? Which brings me to Abraham……
Abraham heard God speak to him when he lived in Ur (which is in modern Southern Iraq) and tell him to leave with all his family and possessions to go to a land that he knew nothing of. (The full story is in Genesis 11 and 12 and Acts 7).
That’s it. That’s all Abraham got. No bible to check in, no wise Pastors to consult, no Prophetic people to ask. Nothing. Just “Go”. With the voice of God as his only guide, Abraham left Ur for a destination that he knew nothing about. The interesting thing is that Ur was a very sophisticated city. It had a piped water system, a sewerage system connected to houses. It was a rich city set in very fertile plain, famous for its art, jewellery and precious metalwork. Abraham left the comfort of all this – to live in tents while travelling overland to goodness knows where.
Half way through his journey, Abraham stopped at Haran, and settled there. Eventually God had to speak to him again and remind him of the original call to get up and go. My desktop screensaver is a picture of Abraham’s Pool, a monument built near Haran which is in South east Turkey. It reminds me not to settle
The bible says that Abraham was prepared to give up his comfortable city life and live in tents like a stranger in the land that God promised him, because he was looking forward to something greater that God was building. What is God saying to you?
Maybe, like me, you have felt the call of God to leave the comfort of what you have known for years, and to move into something new. Maybe, like me, you have an inkling of where this is going, but not a lot of detail. No map, no pictures of the destination.. not quite sure where you are going but knowing He said to go. It’s tempting to find a Haran and settle there, but we need to keep following Him.
This is not the time to settle. It is time to hold on, to keep trusting God in the absence of any other direction and despite what those around us might have to say. I bet Abraham had some interesting conversations when he set out from Ur, and again when he set out from Haran. (Bet he had some interesting conversations with his wife Sarai too!) .
Remember that we are called to leave what is behind in order to find what lies ahead that God is doing. It’s ok not to know exactly where we are going or what God is going to do. It worked for Abraham. It will work for us.
I have started to write some stuff about Church, and about how it might change in order to meet the challenge of what God is preparing to do next. You can find it under Articles in the menu. I will add to this section in the weeks ahead.
Church is out there 