Abram Sets Out

“Then the LORD said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.’” — Genesis 12:1

Many years after the tower of Babel, there lived a man named Abram. He lived in a town called Haran with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot.

One day God spoke to Abram. “Leave your country and your relatives and your father’s family,” God said, “and go to the land I will show you.”

God didn’t tell Abram where the land was. He didn’t give him a map. He just said, “Go, and I will show you.”

And then God made Abram some wonderful promises. “I will make you into a great nation,” God said. “I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

That was an amazing promise. Abram and Sarai didn’t have any children at all. How could they become a great nation? And how could the whole world be blessed through one man and his wife?

But Abram trusted God. He didn’t argue, and he didn’t wait to find out more. The Bible says, “So Abram departed, as the LORD had directed him” (Genesis 12:4). He was seventy-five years old!

So Abram packed up everything he owned. There were tents and pots, sheep and goats, cattle and donkeys, and all the people who worked for him. Sarai came, and so did Lot. And off they went, a long line of people and animals, walking south across the dusty land.

Day after day they travelled, until at last they came to a land called Canaan. There, at a place called Shechem, by a great tree, God appeared to Abram again.

“I will give this land to your children,” God said.

Abram still didn’t have any children. But he believed God. So right there he built an altar out of stones and worshipped God, who had brought him all that way.

Then Abram moved on through the land, living in tents. Wherever he went, he built an altar and prayed to God and worshipped Him. Abram didn’t have a house or a city of his own. But he had something better. He had God’s promises, and he had God Himself with him.

The Bible says that Abram “obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). That is what it means to trust God. We don’t always know what is going to happen next, but we know God, and that is enough.

Looking ahead to Jesus: God promised that all the families of the earth would be blessed through Abram. The Bible tells us that this promise came true in Jesus, Abram’s great-great-great-grandson many times over, who came to bless people from every nation in the world (Galatians 3:8, 16).

Read it in your Bible: Genesis 12:1–9

Dear God, thank you that I can trust you even when I don’t know what will happen next. Help me to follow you wherever you lead me. Amen.