By Faith...Abraham

What was this man thinking?! He was leaving Ur, the land of the Sumerians...Hammurabi, ziggurats, platted farm land and extensive irrigation canals, civilized society with multi-story homes, patios and brick streets, hanging gardens, written laws, judges and courts, temples and palaces, luxurious fabrics, painted walls, incredibly extravagant jewelry, place settings and household furnishings. 

Abraham was dragging his wife and extended family to something as yet undefined, and to a place that was totally uncivilized, inhabited by nomadic tribes living in tents made of goat skins, bartering for acquisitions and fighting over such things as hand-dug wells and kidnapped "wives." He would pass many other grand cities of wealth and splendor on his six hundred plus miles of very slow travel as he made his way, ultimately westward, to the region of Canaan. His father would die during this journey. It would take him years to get there. 

When Abraham did finally arrive in Canaan he experienced an increasing awareness that even this was not his real destination..."he was looking for a city with foundations whose builder and maker was God."

Couldn't Abraham have arrived at this "faith" conclusion without having to uproot his family and make such a drastic and socially diminishing relocation? Perhaps. It's also possible that the distractions of his origins, the safety and familiarity of his setting, the wealth of his place in the culture, would not have provided the catalyst for developing faith and a walk which defined his most remarkable identity in old age - a friend of God!

Does it always take hard times to define our relationship with God? The short answer is "yes." Hebrews 5:8-9, "Although He was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him..." 

Is this migration of Abraham's from the good life to the hard life to be an expected pattern for all of us? Not necessarily, it depends upon what God sees in your possibilities and what obstacles you present to that perfect vessel God knows is possible. Each of us are, after all, our own worst enemy.

We don't really know what was going on with Abraham (Abram) as he began to process the thought of moving from Ur toward an unknown destination. Ur was, indeed, the land of Sumerians and he was Semitic. The Semites had been there since the 2300's B.C. when Sargon (a Semite) conquered everything from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. The language (Akkadian) and people of Sargon had been able to move widely within that first great empire of recorded history. Now during Abraham's day the power had returned to city-states and the local rivalries among these city-states might have made his future in Ur seem less than good. 

Indeed,  by about 1700 B.C. Hammurabi would have come against most of the city-states in the Euphrates valley and totally destroyed some of the most prosperous of the northern cities (such as Mari). The land of the Sumerians would become a very hostile environment to Semites. Abraham's call from God might have been a preserving call for him to move toward a land that could eventually be home for his descendants. Even if Abraham couldn't see the imminent danger to Semites in the Ur and lower Euphrates region, God could see it.

Although our present position might seem to be safe and prosperous, God knows the future. What might seem to be an untimely move viewed through present circumstances might be ultimately seen retrospectively as having saved us from harm and danger. Such could be said of the events which unfolded for that region in the years shortly following Abraham's removal to Canaan. His real hardship would have been to stay in the circumstances of apparent safety, rather than moving toward the obscurity and simplicity of the hills of Canaan.

God, please hear me today. I want to hear you before I have to move any closer to hardship.