He hadn’t always been a nomad.
Time was when he lived in a sophisticated city that boasted three-storey homes with plumbing. Ur was one of the most developed cities in the East. There, “Beyond the River”, as east of the Euphrates later came to be called, Abram’s family of birth had “served other gods” (Josh. 24:2). They were quite probably well-to-do citizens of Ur, since Abram—at least after his father died—was extremely wealthy (Gen. 13:2).
Yet Abram must have been shadowed by keen disappointment, coupled with a lost sense of mission, since his wife, Sarai, had been unable to bear the children they surely so much wanted in that patriarchal age. So it is probable Abram was restless, trying to make the best out of life, pondering the meaning of being born for a fulfillment thwarted.
But then came the call. Almighty God appeared to him. In a dream—perhaps a vision? Did he see an angel, hear a voice? Or was he simply moved by an impression of mind? Or…something else? It is a fascinating question considering the astounding nature of the call and the faith involved in pursuing it.
To think of Abram being divinely ordered by Almighty God through a blinding revelation leads us to conceive of him as merely obeying, whether from faith, or not. On the other hand, to imagine him acting on a conviction of his innermost mind prompts a greater tendency to see him moving forward on faith, since faith involves the element of trust in the face of uncertainty. Whichever the case: a direct, objective command, or simply a conviction of the heart, Abram’s history-making act must have involved the option of doubt, of questioning, or it does not have the nature of faith. And if there is anything we know for certain about this man’s life, it is that he is the father of faith.
If, for example, Abram was responding to a direct command from God, he might have wondered whether or not, in the hot sun, he was “seeing things”. Or, surrounded by a pagan world to which the One Almighty God had not yet clearly revealed Himself, he could have doubted whether the “god” who gave him this order was able to pull it off, or, even worse, had evil or good intent.
If, on the other hand, he was operating from a conviction of heart, he would surely have had to ponder whether or not he was losing touch with reality and fixating on grandiose delusions, especially in the light of his disappointment over being childless, and the sense of futility that must have left him with.
Nobody can doubt that Abram’s journey of faith is meant to be an inspiration and example to us. His life guides us by how God worked with him. But if that is true, then our mind’s eye must set Abram within the common stream of humanity, or we shall feel that he has nothing to say to us. One of the common and most serious mistakes of biblical interpretation is the tendency to by-pass the ordinariness of biblical men, as if, because of some unusual, ancient saintliness, they were beyond coming face to face with the same psychological and spiritual onslaughts of the mind that the rest of have to face. The result of this delusion stagnates the world’s rivers of religion: mystics so unapproachable to ordinary men that they are worshipped rather than followed because they are supposedly invested with powers beyond the humanity of ordinary mortals.
So what was the call this flesh-and-blood man, Abram, received from God?
“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” (Gen. 12:1, 2 NIV).
The very idea must have struck across everything Abram knew, everything he was familiar with: friends of long years, family ties, community, creature comforts; all that called forth childhood memories flowing into the pleasurable pool of nostalgia. While Abram was well into settling down and probably considered himself in his sunset years, God said, Let’s go!
Yet the call to leave wasn’t the most striking thing about this encounter with God; it was the call to arrive: a new country; you will be a great nation; blessed so much, your name will be used as a blessing (cf. Gen. 12:2 REB).
There is something utterly fascinating here. Abram was seventy-five at this time (Gen. 12:4), old enough to have come to terms with disappointment. His wife was barren. They obviously had tried to have children many times and couldn’t. He must have hoped over the decades that this might be the year she’d conceive. There is little doubt that they would have tried the traditional fertility herbs of the time and any other health treatments current. But time, Abram probably realized, had run out. Sarai was now sixty-five (Gen. 17:1, 17; 12:4). She had most likely gone through menopause. The final host for Abram’s sperm had died. No more eggs were dropping.
Extended family meetings would ensue to discuss the eventuality of no heir and the options available. The embarrassment of no natural lineage would have been keen to Abram. Sarai must have undoubtedly felt a failed wife, given the culture of the time. Possibly their impotent state led to occasional spats and barbs between them that would have taken the edge off their delight in each other. Undoubtedly, the spice of life would have diminished, leaving behind a tasteless tedium to their days. But dignity no doubt prevailed as, in all likelihood, they swallowed their pride and accepted the outcome with reluctant resignation.
It is in the light of these failed hopes that the very idea that Abram was to have a child through whom he would head up whole nations and bless the world, must have been an utter shock to the system and beyond all reason.
Here is God at His best. Planning comfort out of sorrow, vigor out of weariness, hope out of despair, abundance out of want, life out of death—“the God who makes the dead live and calls into being things that are not” (Rom. 4:17 REB). And in spite of the illogic and grimness of the outlook, Abram believed this astonishing, unpredictable God Whose overflowing generosity was counting him to be the most blessed man on earth.
Christian! Do not fail to see that Abram’s blessing is yours! “The promise [to Abram] was made on the ground of faith in order that…it might be valid…for those who have Abraham’s faith. For he is the father of us all” (Rom. 4:16 REB). “The words ‘counted to him’ [Gen. 15:6] were meant to apply not only to Abraham but to us” (Rom. 4:23, 24 REB). “Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham…Those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer” (Gal. 3:7, 9 NASB).
Like Abram, how many people in addiction, and even recovery, face thwarted dreams; hope never delivering to their door; endless embarrassment over having no spouse; no children, no enduring friends: the spice of life yielding to tasteless tedium and a reluctant resignation! And how many, having started on the road to recovery, are stymied with doubt, worried that they might have lost touch with reality, merely swimming around in grandiose delusions!
To them, at the sunset of futility and frustration, God says, Let’s go! It is, in essence, the promise to Abram:
I have good news for the humble. I will bind up the broken hearted. I will give liberty to the captives. I will release those in prison. I will comfort all who mourn. I will give you garlands in place of ashes. I will give you oil of gladness in place of mourners’ tears. I will clothe you with a garment of splendor in place of a heavy heart. I will call you righteous (cf. Isa. 61:1–3). Leave behind your old country. Come with me to a new country that I will show you of. I will make you great, so great that people will want to be blessed like you (cf. Gen. 12:1–3). “I myself shall go before you and level the swelling hills; I shall break down bronze gates and cut through iron bars” (Isa. 45:2 REB).
When Abram believed God, it was not that he believed but what he believed that was counted to him as righteousness. He believed that, in the light of what God promised, God was loving and good and generous; that God was trustworthy; that God was merciful; that God, through an utterly unpredictable and bountiful gift of a child, was going to make him great. What is this, he must have realized, but that God is treating me, an ordinary man, as if I really deserved this, as if I were actually righteous, of all things!?
All that Abram was to receive was to come through his heir. Though he must have thought the heir in question was to be his son, Isaac, yet to be born to him, nevertheless he was later to learn, through the astounding insights that he gained when he nearly sacrificed Isaac on the altar, that Isaac was only a type of the greater One to come. And thus Jesus, twenty-one hundred years later said of this man, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56 NASB). The seed of Abram, then, was Christ (Gal. 3:16; cf. Gen. 13:15), as Paul significantly says, “All the promises of God have their YES in Him” (2 Cor. 1:20). Thus Christ, the True Seed, made all of the promises not only a possibility but also a reality for us. “Whosoever believes in Him” receives the promises of Abram (cf. John 3:16). “For the promise to Abraham…that he would be heir of the world was…through the righteousness of faith…It is by faith…in order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (Rom. 4:13–16 NASB, italics supplied).
If then, we are children of Abram, and if all the promises made to him are for us through Christ who was Abram’s seed, then Abram’s faith-training is for us, since we are Christ’s. We are the ones who are to leave our old country where we were defined as “homosexual”, “sex addict”, “transsexual”, or “alcoholic”, “drug addict”, “child molester”, “food addict”, “worrier”, “depressive”, or any other charge that our accusing minds might throw at us. By faith we are to leave those definitions behind. They belong to the old, pagan country.
Impossible, you say! It’s all I know! It was all Abram knew, too. Don’t you think that while trying to settle down in that “new country”, he often cast his mind back to old friends, old haunts, the familiar, the nostalgic, and sometimes wished he were back there? Abram must have had to remind himself time and again that he belonged to a new country, that he was to bless the world, that God was treating him as a righteous man, not a pagan. It is the same with you. The old country will try to pull on you. Your faith will have to remind you that that’s not where you belong any more. You’re going to be blessed and bless the world. You are treated as a righteous man now.
Ah, but, you say, I did all that. I left the old country, I went for recovery, and what have I got? The new country’s a disappointment. I’m alone and feel like a stranger, and things are not working out. You think they worked out any better for Abram? He “lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land” (Heb. 11:9 NASB)! He “died in faith, without receiving the promises” (Heb. 11:13 NASB)!
“Nice country,” he might have thought, “but it won’t do. God’s got more for me than this.” Faith was not something temporary for Abram, a thing he used until he got to the new country, after which he started grumbling that it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. It couldn’t have been long before Abram began to see that the reality he had been promised had spiritual dimensions that could not fit this fallen world. His faith was dealing with the transcendent God of eternity! He began to see that the promised seed was not a natural child but Someone beyond the power of death (Gen. 22:14; Gal. 3:8; Heb. 11:17–19). And so, as his faith grew he did not settle for this paltry world. He “desire[d] a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16). He confessed that he was a stranger and exile on the earth (Heb. 11:13); he was “looking forward to a city with firm foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10 REB). This man died still believing in the promise to come (Heb. 11:13)! So God was not ashamed to be called his God. He had prepared a city for him (Heb. 11:16).
This, then, is what your faith is all about. When you arrive in your country of recovery, you instinctively sense that it’s only a morsel of the full feast God has prepared for you. As good as recovery is, it’s always imperfect because it takes place in a flawed world. But recovery’s ingredients have the taste of eternity and give you an appetite for the flavors of that heavenly land. We get the first-fruits here, not the whole orchard. Even when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was only the hint of the new country, not the real thing. Yet did anybody ever hear him complaining that the body Jesus brought him back to life in wasn’t a perfect one, that he still got aches and pains, still had to rest when he got tired, still sometimes felt sad and lonely, still had problems with his wife and kids, still continued to get old, and still had to contemplate dying—again? The boon of resurrected life, though far from perfect, must have surely given him an appetite for the eternal resurrection to come.
Similarly, when in faith you take off to the new country God has given you, don’t just believe until you’ve got what you were aiming for. Like Abram, be prepared to “die in faith”, believing that the promise includes infinitely more than you have received, because God is eternally generous.
But isn’t this putting the cart before the horse, you say? Aren’t salvation and recovery by faith alone? Yet it sounds as if you’re saying we have to come out of the old country of our addiction first, before we can enter our new country of salvation. No, that’s not it. We have this tendency to interpret the Old Testament legalistically. But the New Testament shows us its Gospel meaning. God did not say to Abram, If you leave your father’s house and home, I will lead you to a new country and make you great. Leaving the old country was not a condition that he had to fulfill before he could enter the new. The will to leave the old country was part of the gift, not a means to it. God already had the new country lined up for Abram. It was because he was to receive the new country, because he would inherit the world, because in him nations would be blessed and because he believed it that he had the courage to get up and go. Action followed faith-possession; possession did not follow action.
The promise is the same for you. God has given you a new country. It does not come if you succeed in getting out of your addictive mess. Christ is the heir to this country, and you receive it in Him by faith. Just as Abram inherited the land via his son, so you inherit it through Jesus. All the promises find their YES in Christ. So it is because you have received a new country that you give up the old, not in order to receive it that you let go of the old. It is because the prize is certain; because it finds a complete, unqualified YES in Christ Who is yours, that you have the daily encouragement and motivation to keep affirming to yourself by faith that you don’t belong to the old country any more. And since you are no longer its citizen, you do not have to identify with its values and ways any more. Like Abram, you grow strong in faith as you give glory to God (Rom. 4:20 RSV) for your new home, and as you do you find the courage to keep clearing out of your heart and mind the ways of the old country. And, like Abram, you are destined to bless the world.