Genesis 12:1-5
The Lord 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. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
Jeremiah 29:11-13
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Years ago, when I was served as Youth Pastor, we would to take students on summer adventure trips – just as our Student Ministries staff does today.
One of the trips we developed in those days involved camping, rafting and rock climbing up in Wisconsin. We hired “Expeditions Unlimited”, a Christian outfitter we still used today, to put together the trip.
The “Expeditions Unlimited” staff took care of all the details. They set up our tents; made our food and arranged for us to raft on the Wisconsin River. Everything was great and the first two days were great fun!
But on the third day of the trip we were scheduled to do the rock climbing. So they took us to the bottom of an 85 foot cliff and set up all the ropes and taught us how to climb safely, etc., and up we went.
Now, the climbing part was fun; difficult, but fun! You were hooked up to ropes so that if you got tired they could just hold you there while you rested. And, eventually, we all made it to the top of the climb. I thought we were done.
Nope.
Steve Higgins, the founder of “Expeditions Unlimited”, then told us we were going to rappel down the same cliff we had climbed up.
Now, if you’ve ever done something like that you know that an 85 foot cliff looks pretty high when you’re standing at the bottom – but when you get on top it looks like you’re on the Empire State Building!
I’ve never been particularly fond of heights, so I sort of weaseled my way to the back of the group just in case Steve was looking for volunteers.
He was.
He looked right at me and said, “Pastor Brian, come on out here, you can go first to show us how it’s done!”
I think he knew I was scared out of my mind, but he also know I couldn’t admit that in front of the students, so he called me out.
He hooked me all up with a harness and ropes and explained that the ropes were strong enough to hold two mini-vans, so my 185 pounds weren’t a problem. Then he led me to the very edge of the cliff and turned me around so my back was facing the abyss.
Then he gave me a command. He said, “Now lean back.”
I looked at him, with all the students watching, and said, “No.”
He said it again, “Lean back.”
I said, “No!”
He said, “You want all these kids to think you’re chicken?”
I said, “I don’t care!”
I really, really didn’t want to lean back! Everything in me told me not to lean back. First of all, I didn’t like heights; second, I had never done something like that before so it was unknown territory; and third, it just wasn’t natural to lean back into space with 85 feet of nothing but air between me and a very hard landing!
But, eventually, Steve plus the expectations of 30 high school students, convinced me to lean back; sort of.
I leaned back enough to descend the cliff, but I didn’t exactly “rappel.” I hung like a wounded duck on the end of a rope until Steve lowered me to the ground.
The next person to go was a freshman girl, who bounded down the cliff like a Navy Seal; it was humiliating!
Put your self in Abram’s shoes for a moment. God says,
“Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
If I was Abram, I think I would have had a boatload of questions/objections at that point.
“Why do I need to leave now? The house is paid for; the kids are in good schools; all our friends are here; I’m just about ready to retire. Why move now? If you have something for me to do, I’m sure I could commute for a few months or something. And, besides, do you know how far that is? We’re talking a thousand miles; that’s four or five months of travel at least, not to mention the time it will take to pack up all our stuff. And who knows what the real estate market will be when we get there? And what about schools, what language do they speak there anyway?”
You get the point!
There are always a thousand reasons not to leave our comfort zone. Most of them come down to discomfort or the fear of discomfort; duh! And we can always find a thousand ways to justifying staying put. And most of them come down to fear of the unknown.
For Abram to leave everything that was familiar to him and journey toward an unknown land required faith. Just as I had to trust Steve when he told me that the ropes would hold my weight; Abram had to trust that the God who called him would also hold him. He had to trust that God had a plan and that his plan was good.
Years before these words were written in the book of Jeremiah, Abram believed them to be true:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
Is God calling you to leave your comfort zone in some way? It might be to reach out to someone in your neighborhood or school who is not in your immediate circle of relationships. It might be to invest yourself in serving in ways you haven’t considered before. It might be to become more extravagantly generous with you resources.
But whatever step he is calling you to take, however stretching or scary it might be, remember two things: First, his plan always involves blessing the world through the gospel; and second, his plan is always is to prosper you and not to harm you!
Pastor Brian Coffey
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