Out of Ur, into the Unknown

“The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your land [Ur of the Chaldeans],

and from your kindred, and from your father’s house

 to the land that I will show you.”

Genesis 12:1

“By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obediently went out,

not knowing where he was going.”

Hebrews 11:8

“Hear me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord!

Look to the rock from which you have been hewn,

and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug!

Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you,

for I called him alone, and I blessed him and multiplied him.”

Isaiah 51:1–2

God calls all His people of out of Ur of the Chaldeans, so to speak, and all who are like father Abraham respond to God’s call without knowing where they are going.  All that Abraham knew, in the beginning, was that God had called him to leave his homeland and to follow Him.  Likewise, all that Abraham’s children know, in the beginning, is that God is calling.  And knowing that is all they need to know, in the beginning.

For us, to leave Ur means to cease trusting in the earthly things with which we are familiar and to trust God to be our hope, our Protecter, and our Avenger.  Every sincere child of God has felt that sweet, desperate need for God’s guidance, but not one of us knew, in the beginning, where that guidance would take us.  We only know what we felt.  That wonderful feeling was God’s call to leave the world and follow Him into a spiritual place about which we, at first, knew nothing.

Coming to the Border

No one who cries out for the knowledge of God possesses what he is asking for; otherwise, he would have no need to ask for it.  And many have prayed for the knowledge of God but have been unable to embrace it when God answered their prayer.  A brother named Jimmy once testified that one day, years before, he was down on his knees pleading with God for grace to truly know Him and serve Him, a voice spoke to him and said, “Many have come this far and turned back.”  Jimmy wasn’t exactly sure what the Lord meant.  But he knew that he had reached the border of a spiritual place unknown to him, and that many others had prayed themselves to that same border but were unwilling to cross it with Jesus into the unknown.

If you have been praying to know God more perfectly, you have been praying for something you do not yet have.  Prepare your heart for God’s answer.  Jesus told us to seek, for God will always let us find, but Jesus did not say we would like what we find.  He told us to knock, for God will always open the door, but Jesus did not say that we would walk through the door that God opens.  He told us to ask, for God will always give, but Jesus did not say that we would accept the gift that is given.  Many have sought, knocked, and asked, and God has always responded, but just a few have the faith of Abraham to leave their own Ur of the Chaldeans, the things of earth with which they are familiar, and go with Jesus to places they have not known.

With all their asking, the wise also ask for faith to believe God’s answers, whatever they may be.  For they understand that God can surprise and even frighten us with His astonishing truth.