Abram's Call: God finds us

Let's spend a few days thinking about call.  I recently taught a class in the Western district concerning lay servant ministry.  As I wrote the outline for the class, I started with a few call stories.  I think each of them can tell us something different about how God, in relationship with us, calls us to ministry.

Review Genesis 12:1-9.  This is Abraham's call (Abram at the time).  Verses 1-3:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

As a sidenote, the blessed to be a blessing concept is one of my favorites from the book of Genesis.  It is the motivation for our call.

If you read all of this passage, you'll see that God calls, and Abram goes.  He picks up what he has, and his family, and he leaves where he lives, heading out, following God.  Abram lived in a city in what is now possibly in Turkey - although there is not consensus about this.  He traveled to the land of the Canaanites - even ending up in Egypt at one point.  The Canaanites lived in what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, southern Lebanon, and southern Syria. No matter how you look at it, or where you place ancient cities, Abram traveled.

And yet, at each place, God found him.  At each place, God was there.  

God comes to us where we are.  Where we are geographically; where we are spiritually; where we are emotionally; where we are physically. God calls us - finds us - values us - wherever we are.  And when we say yes, when we obey, we will find that God travels with us.  God does not leave us alone in a foreign land.