Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Finding faith

Sunday, February 24, 2002

Genesis 12:1-4
The Lord had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." So Abram left, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran.

In December's National Geographic cover story, "Abraham, Father of Faith,"* Tad Szulc writes,

Imagine a world saturated with ignorance and hatred, a lonely, brutish place without any hope of redemption. Now, picture a man - Abram, the Bible calls him - who hears a command from God: Leave behind the life you know, and I will one day bless the entire world through you. How this will happen, and why, is a mystery to this man, but he sets out. In time God gives him a new name: Abraham (which means "father of many"). In time he will become the patriarch of three monotheistic faiths - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And history will be forever transformed by his story.

In the great National Geographic tradition, the author attempts to retrace Abram's trail, taking along his healthy imagination and a photographer.

Legends not recorded in the Bible are nevertheless given credence by people on the route. One locates Abram's cave birthplace, where he is said to have aged a month on the first day of his birth and turned 12 on his first birthday. His vision of a single god led him to smash figures of deities and idols, enraging King Nimrod, founder of Babylon and Nineveh.

Nimrod's great-grandfather was Noah (Gen 10:8), and Abram is ten generations descended from Noah. Old as he was, Nimrod was still Abram's nemesis. According to legend and song, he foretold Abram's birth and set out to destroy all newborn baby boys, because he also foretold that Abraham, with his new faith in one God, would overthrow his regime, in which Nimrod himself was a god.

Abram survived, of course, and later Nimrod ordered Abram burned at the stake; but a huge pool of water materialized, dousing the fire, and flaming logs turned into fierce fish that saved Abram. Nimrod decreased, and Abram increased.

After living an entire life (Psalm 90:10) in Haran, Abraham uprooted himself from a comfortable existence. The Haran of today is hardly a tourist trap (a Turkish village of 500 where temperatures sometimes exceed 120 degrees), but local legend tentatively identifies the remains of a house where Abram lived. Spacious and thick-walled with wide-open yards to moderate the heat, it must have belonged to a large, prosperous family.

With his ear to the ground and eyes to the sky, listening to God, Abram left his home. The next thirteen chapters of the Bible are the genesis of the people of God - Abraham's family - marked physically by the new ritual of circumcision but far more deeply and thoroughly changed by their experience of faith, "being certain of what we do not see" (Heb 11:1).

Despite his occasional despair and several personal indiscretions, Abraham lived out both the top-line (he was blessed) and the bottom-line (he was a blessing) of God's covenant with him. Isaac survived God's fiery test of his dad's faith by a hair and became Abraham's (and God's) heir in the next generation.

"Altogether, Abraham lived 175 years. Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people" (Gen 25:7-8)

Tad Szulc ends his article with "Hymn to the Blessings of Abraham," a poem by Muslim writer Cengizhan Mutlu, which captures some of the legend of Abraham's early life:

Idol made of pure gold
Gives no hope, no food.
Nimrod doesn't comprehend this.

Wood burns (for the stake),
Smoke reaches for the sky,
Ibrahim is thrown into the fire.

He feels no pain, he doesn't groan.
He says, "My God will save me."
Two angels had said it rightly.

Embers turn into ashes,
Sparkles turn into roses.

Lord, throughout the generations your people have said, and meant, "My God will save me." We walk where we cannot see, knowing You direct our paths. And that your eyes are always open.

http://www.magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/12/01/html/ft_20011201.6.html

Devotions Archive

Finding faith

Sunday, February 24, 2002