Christian Living

---

It was probably a day like most any other in Abram's household. He and Sarai had no children although they had been a long time wed. They had moved from Ur of Chaldees to Haran with Abram's father, Terah, and his nephew, Lot, many years before. There was no doubt a very ordered existence when the call came: God's call, no less! to leave home and friends and relatives and everything familiar and "go to a land I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation." Can't you just imagine the puzzled looks they must have exchanged as they said, "All right, but where?" But Scripture records that there was no hesitation: at age seventy-five Abram took Sarai and Lot, packed their belongings and departed as the Hebrew writer later records, "not knowing where he was going."

It would be twenty-five years before the promised seed, Isaac, would be born, but Abram waited patiently for he "judged him faithful who had promised." No wonder that Abraham's life casts such a long shadow from Scriptural dawn till sunset. It is said that by his life Abraham made a statement that he was in search of a city with foundation whose builder and maker is God. He confessed that he was a stranger and pilgrim traveling by faith to a better place. The Hebrew writer also says that if they had been so minded, they might have had opportunity to return to their former home. But they kept their eyes forward seeing by faith a home not made with hands eternal in the heavens prepared for faithful pilgrims, of whom Abraham was foremost.

And we ought to take a page from Abraham's eloquent biography. He believed and obeyed God when it was inconvenient, unreasonable and humanly incomprehensible. It wasn't easy for him, and it isn't easy for us. But Scripture says that Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness. What a reward awaits those who walk by faith, nothing questioning! Abraham never found a spot on earth that looked like home to him. He sought no "continuing city," and neither should we. He saw heaven dimly in the early morning light, long before Jesus came, but we see it clearly in the bright sunlight after the cross and the empty tomb. It ought to make it easier for us to follow Abraham's example: to walk, never doubting, toward our eternal home without undue attachment to earthly geography.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE