How Much do you Trust God?

What if God were to call you this afternoon as tell you take your family and move to another city? He doesn’t tell you why, and He doesn’t allow you any time to debate with Him. You either accept His commandment or not. It’s  your choice, but you will ONLY receive His blessing IF you accept, without hesitation, His commandment to pick up and move. And to top it off, you are an old man, and had to take your nephew along with you and ALL your possessions. The only hint of protection is that He will curse anyone who curses you. This is exactly what happens in today’s reading from Genesis.

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.  And 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 him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves."   So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.  And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions which they had gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.  Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. (Genesis 12:1-7)

Fortunately for us, God rarely speaks with such force nowadays. Chances are you won’t be called by God in the middle of the night to get out of town, but you will be asked to trust that He knows what is best for you and your family. And fortunately for you He has given us His Church to guide us in the way He wants us to live. When you make the most of your Great Lenten journey, and allow the Church to guide you along the road of life, sometimes it even feels like you are moving to strange land.

The world you have become so comfortable in is filled with temptations and distractions that spending Great Lent without certain foods, attending Church services rather than going out with friends, giving charity to the poor rather than building up your bank account, can all begin to feel like God actually did send you to a foreign land. That’s because you were meant to live with God in paradise, but (if you remember the first and second week of Great Lent) you now live in this world struggling until you are ultimately reunited with God.

When Abram trusted God and took his family to another country, He was blessed to become the Father of many nations. We’ll learn more about how God rewarded Abram’s faith next week. Until then, ask yourself, “How much do you trust God?”