Endure: Building Faith for the Long RunSample

Abraham: Faith when we can't see

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.

“So Abram went” was a simple phrase that has been a balm to my family's heart for years. God placed that verse in the heart of my wife, Heather, over a decade ago. We were praying through a ministry opportunity that would take us to western Arizona and had no idea what to do. This new opportunity seemed like a door that the Lord had clearly opened, but it also had some drawbacks that we were concerned about.

Both my wife and I had spent our entire lives in North Carolina. There is a significant cultural difference between a Bible Belt state like North Carolina and the West Coast feel that Arizona has. Moving over two thousand miles away meant we could not make it back home very much. Moving meant leaving the people we loved behind for an extended period of time.

The decision weighed heavily on us, and we had great difficulty trying to figure out what to do. In God’s kindness, it just so happened that my wife was in a Bible study that was going through the entire book of Genesis. That study brought her to the call of Abram (later Abraham) in Genesis 12. We don’t know how Abraham weighed his options or how many sleepless nights it took for him to decide to uproot his life to go to the place that God had for him. All we know is that God called, and Abraham went. A clear call was met with bold, faithful obedience.

So we went.

The obedience that Abraham lived out is one that is inspiring, but it also was costly.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 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.

Abraham’s call came with a wildly lavish inheritance, but it also came with an inherent cost. He said goodbye forever to the people he loved. He left behind his familiar and comfortable world for a land that was full to the brim of unknowns. He left a life of stability for one of transience. The cost of following the call of God was high, but the inheritance that lay beyond what Abraham could see was vast. He was willing to embrace the cost to grab onto something far more valuable.

Tally up the costs. Look at the inheritance to come. What you once had will pale in comparison to what is to come.