“Then the Lord appeared to Abram…From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent…And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.” – Genesis 12:7-8
Who spoke first? God or Abram? Clearly it was God! God called. Abram obeyed, and from his experience of obedience, Abram discovered what it was like to “call upon the name of the Lord.” The journey of faith drives us to joyful dependence (“calling on the name of the Lord”) as we depart from our previous places of security in obedience to His calling. Have you found yourself calling on the name of the Lord?
Jacob, and later Joshua, would travel the same route and would also mark the site with altars. Abram’s action of marking his faith would guide his descendants on their own faith journeys. Have you marked your faith journey? There are a variety of ways to do it. Be baptized, join a church, and get involved in a ministry are all ways to mark your faith journey.
In the end, “Abram pitched his tent.” The gift of the journey of faith is not that we quickly reach our final destination. The gift of the journey is that along the way we find that we are not alone. We learn to say with the psalmist, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8).
Think These Things 