Go Where I Send Thee

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

The life of faith is nothing if it is not a journey. God is not static. God does not remain fixed in any one place, in any one way, but God is ever-shifting with the context, forming and reforming all that is, even if all that we perceive is endless chaos. 

One of the inescapable truths of God is the constancy of redemption. Because we are who and what we are, the need for redemption never ceases. We are forever freely choosing to enter the chaotic, bringing suffering to ourselves and others. Therefore, God is in an eternal state of redeeming. God’s ordering of chaos never ends. God’s Spirit continues to hover over all that is, bringing reconciliation, healing, and comfort to those touched by chaos. Sometimes healing comes immediately—a sudden reconciliation after a fight—sometimes it takes a while—nations do heal after war, but it may take decades, if not centuries, for that to be felt. 

I see that all the time in my work. I think about that right now with families hurting in profound and existential ways this holiday season. As I review history, that movement appears repeatedly. Tumult is followed by calm. Disorder is followed by restoration. Catastrophe is followed by rebuilding.

Most of us experience this movement in actual movement—we transition from one thing to another, from one place to another, from one job to another, from one relationship to another. Even folks who live in the same community for their entire lives see faces come and go, see circumstances alter, and watch the community itself evolve into something different. If it is is human, it will change. 

Through faith, we have the opportunity to experience this change as growth, as part of the creative process through which God brings the kingdom to fruition. 

The biblical story contains many repeating themes, but one of the most prevalent is the theme of call. God chooses someone for a particular work. More often than not, that choice comes with a move—no one seems able to stay where they are when God calls. 

The call of Abram is a profound example of this flow. In an act of divine randomness, God chooses Abram to be the focal point of promise. It will be through Abram that the community of faith—the community from which spring Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—will take shape. As that happens, there will be profound experiences of movement.

Begin with the simple randomness of the choice of Abram. The Spirit hovers, the Spirit settles on a man who in truth is no different from anyone else. In a sense, Abram’s own randomness because the rationale for the choice. He is a wanderer. He is old. He is embodied wilderness in many ways. God’s sense seems to be that there could be no better choice through which to bring the promise of God to fruition—no one will be able to claim that Abram was superior, a spiritual hero, or a paragon of virtue, thereby eliminating themselves as partakers of the promise. No, Abram’s very existence is assurance to all that God is with all.

But becoming the recipient of the promise does not mean Abram gets to sit still. He continues to wander. God’s presence serves only to emphasize the wandering. Becoming the man of promise means growing into that identity; growing into that identity means moving. 

That paradigm holds true for the whole of Israel’s existence; it sets the tone and pattern for Christ’s work within the world; and it defines our own lives of faith before God. God will move us as we become the people God needs us to be. Part of that movement comes in the recognition that movement brings growth through a widening of experience. Young people often embody wanderlust, but that comes as a blessing as they see, experience, and come to know the wider world, expanding their horizons, guarding them against provincialism. The more we see of the world, the more able we are to appreciate the mighty sweep God’s creative imagination. Part of that movement is the recognition that the gifts we glean along the way are to be shared with others. Compassion flows through generosity. They are interdependent. God moves us to take our graces to mingle with those of others, allowing both to become more than they were previously. If Abram is to be the blessing for all the people of the earth, he is going to have to mingle with as many of those people as possible during his lifetime. taking the message of God’s promise in his presence within the world. Finally, movement becomes the way of refinement and reformation. As we move, we shed the collected rubbish that accumulates. We reconsider. We sort and file. We rid ourselves of some of our baggage. We pare down our collected stuff, wisdom, and experience to what we need until the next move. 

So the life of faith is a journey. It was one without end. It is one that carries us from birth to death (and beyond). Abram is our father. We become his children as we accept the journey.