Truth #2: Living by faith means waiting on God to keep his promises. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. (Hebrews 11:9). There is within all of us a natural desire to settle down. The older I get, the less I like to move. I value coming home to the same place and the same faces every day. Several years ago we moved from Oak Park, Illinois to Tupelo, Mississippi. As we were packing, our home was filled with boxes waiting to be loaded on the moving truck. It was unsettling to look at bare walls that only a few days before were covered with familiar pictures. Suddenly that home looked less like a home and more like a building where we used to live in some distant past. Now run the clock forward 18 months. When we came back to Oak Park for a visit, we drove past our old home on Wesley Avenue. I had a strange sensation, as if I remembered living there in the distant past. It looked the same but it didnt feel like home to me at all. There is a certain rootlessness about our life at this point that is instructive. Now that our boys are in their twenties, they are going in all directions at once. Four years ago our oldest son left to teach English in China. He came back and another son went to China. That son came back and another son left for China. Josh met Leah, they got married and went to China for a year. Mark met Vanessa when they served on the same team in China. After they came back to the States, they got married. When Josh and Leah returned to the States two weeks ago, it was the first time in four years that we havent had a son in China. Two years ago our family was together for a total of three days. Last year I think we were all together for about five days. This year we will all be together for three or four days. Thats the way life is - and will be for the foreseeable future. It has hit me that home is a matter of the heart, a moving target, not so much a place as being with the people you love the most. Wherever they are - in the U.S. or in China or anywhere else - is home in the truest sense. The rootlessness I spoke about can leave you with a vague sense of uneasiness, of trying to figure out where you belong. Multiply that feeling by a factor of 100 and spread it out over fifty years and you approximate Abrahams situation as he came to the Promised Land. Our text tells us that he lived in tents. I know lots of people who like to camp on vacation, but I dont know anyone who voluntarily lives in a tent as a permanent residence. Tents speak of impermanence, of the possibility of moving on at any moment, of the fact that you live on land you do not personally own. Thats Abraham. He didnt own anything in the Promised Land. God had promised to give him the land; yet he lived like a stranger in a foreign country. If you dont own the land, you cant build a permanent dwelling there. In many ways this is even more remarkable than leaving Ur in the first place. As long as he was traveling across the desert, he could dream about the future. But when he got to Canaan, all illusions disappeared. Think of what he didnt find: No Welcome, Abraham sign. No discount coupons from the merchants. No housewarming party. No visit from the Welcome Wagon. No mayor with the key to the city. No band playing Happy Days Are Here Again. No ticker-tape parade. Nobody expected him. Nobody cared that he had come. Nobody gave him anything. God had promised him the land . . . but he had to scratch out an existence in tents. Hundreds of years would pass before the promise was completely fulfilled. Abraham never saw it happen. Neither did Isaac or Jacob. Was Abraham in the will of God? Yes. Was he right to leave Ur? Yes. Was he doing what God wanted him to do? Yes. Why, then, was he living in tents? Because Gods timetable is not the same as ours. Hes not in a big hurry like we are. God works across the generations to accomplish his purposes; were worried about which dress or shirt to buy for the big party this weekend. There is a big difference in those two perspectives. A third principle at work in Abrahams life is the ultimate key to the life of faith. _MC_
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 15:34:01 +0000
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