We like our roots. Heritage. Home. History. Traditions. Family!
In Genesis Chapter 12, we are invited into the story of a man named Abram. I’m pretty sure Abram valued these things, too. Who doesn’t? Nonetheless, God spoke to him and said, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you” (v.1). God uprooted Abram. He told him to leave everything that he knew for something he didn’t know at all. God didn’t say where, he just said, “go.” Thankfully, Abram responded. He “went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). He was 75 years old, and his life’s path was about to take turns far beyond his imagination.
God wants us to learn a few things from Abram’s story. As I promised in last month’s Together in Prayer, I’m focusing in these first months of 2020 on stories of how God brought change into the lives of various individuals, believing that we’ll find lessons we can apply to transitions that are needed, or already happening, in our life and ministry together as the World Mission Prayer League.
Perhaps it goes without saying that God doesn’t orchestrate change just for the sake of change. This is especially clear in Abram’s story. It’s easy to imagine that being uprooted from all that was familiar, and then sent out to a destination yet unknown, caused him considerable anguish. He suddenly went from settled citizen to wandering stranger. Such change, even when directed by God, is not without cost and pain. But neither is it without purpose and promise. “I will make you into a great nation,” God assured Abram. “You will be a blessing… All the families on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2,3).
God uprooted Abram and sent him into the unknown for this very purpose: that eventually all nations on earth would be blessed through the life, death and resurrection of his Son Jesus. Of course, Abram didn’t know and couldn’t see any of this. He only had God’s promises: I will lead you, I will bless you, I will make you a great nation, and through you all will be blessed.
Uprooting has always been a part of God’s mission method. “You are strangers and sojourners with me,” he told his people (Leviticus 25:23). Facing the discomfort and challenge of change and uncertainty remains an inevitable component of God’s calling on our lives. His ultimate blessing for all nations still requires some sacrifice and sojourning on the part of Jesus’ followers. To a man who promised him, “I will follow you wherever you go,” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:57,58) .
Adjusting to change and unpredictability isn’t easy. We human beings have a stubborn propensity for becoming “root bound,” preferring to “stay put” in our places and our ways, unmovable and inflexible. Still, when a man “root bound” in his riches and comforts found it impossible to follow him, Jesus explained to the disciples: “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).
Still today God regularly calls and directs his global harvest laborers to uproot! He invites them to trustingly “sojourn” with him. He understands that they, like Abram before them, will leave behind the comfortable and familiar, and will face grueling changes and bewildering uncertainties. He knows that they, also like Abram, will need much faith to trust his promises and his plan along the way. Accordingly, we expect and prepare WMPL global workers to leave much of their world and culture behind them, and to learn new ways of doing things – everyday things like speaking, dressing, eating, and relating. They must adapt to new surroundings and realities, and along the way trust the One who called them. It is possible with God!
Friends, if such adaptation is required of the workers we send around the world, why would it not be
the same for us as a broader community, as an organization? The context in which we live and do ministry is vastly different from what it was even twenty years ago. Times and places change! So must we. That which is unchangeable is God and his Good News, not us and our ways of doing things.
We may love our “roots,” but the gospel alone is where we are to be rooted, nourished, and sustained by God’s unchanging grace and Spirit. Jesus calls us, too, to “uproot,” to roam with Abram, to venture into uncharted territories, trust his promises, and brave the unknown. This isn’t just Abram’s story. It’s God’s story, God’s story for all nations, and he invites us in! How will we respond?
Ready, set…