Faith and Guidance

Genesis 12: 1-9; Romans 4: 13-25

 

It’s been quite a week for politics. Whatever your party affiliations, there has been a lot of unpredictability and upheaval  - there are going to be 3 by-elections very soon - and we might all be left feeling breathless and wondering ‘what happens next?’.  

We might wonder what guidance we might expect our political leaders to seek.

And we might, this week, have had our own moments of wondering where to turn for guidance or direction in the turmoil of life. 

 

So it’s rather helpful to look at the story of Abram.

 

Like all good stories this one is long and multi-faceted and well worth exploring.

 

Just before the part that we heard, we are told (in Genesis chapter 11) that Terah, the father of Abram, took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (son of Haran, who had died) and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram’s wife, and set off from Ur of the Chaldees for Canaan.

But when they reached Harran they settled there, and there Terah died, leaving Abram as the head of the family.

 

Then, Abram receives some guidance – direct from the Lord God:

‘Leave everything you know and go to a country I shall show you. I shall make you into a great nation’.

 

Abram trusts in God’s guidance and sets out towards Canaan with Sarai, and Lot, his nephew and all their possessions and dependents they had acquired in Harran.

 

They travel by stages – first to Shechem and then to Bethel, travelling South – and in each place they stop Abram encounters God’s presence and builds an altar to mark the holiness of that place. 

 

There are another 13 chapters of Abram’s story – including a child of his own and a name-change to Abraham, but here at the beginning we see the way in which Abram allows God to guide him throughout his long story.

 

1.   Abram seeks God’s presence and God’s guidance, and makes places of prayer and worship. He finds that God is always with him.

 

2.   Abram does what he hears God telling him to do, moving out of the familiar places in faith… and yet there are also times when Abram questions God.

 

3.   The journey is in stages allowing for changes and deeper understanding along the way – Abram doesn’t get the whole picture of his destiny and God’s guidance all at once.

 

So it’s no surprise that when Paul is writing to the Romans about having a relationship with God that is about faith rather than keeping laws, Paul uses Abraham as the example.

 

He draws out Abraham’s hope – that he would be the ‘father of many nations’ even though he and Sarah had no children for many years.

 

Paul quotes Genesis 15:6, “Abram put his faith in the Lord who reckoned it to him as righteousness”.

Abraham’s trust in God’s guidance was what made him the Father of nations, and ultimately the key figure of what are now known as the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

It is Abraham’s hope in God’s promise and his faith in God’s guidance which leads to the blessing which God has promised.

 

I love the story of Abraham – I love its sweep and its importance. I used to love the picture of Abraham & Lot in the Bible I had as a child – with proper long Old Testament beards and robes, and what looked to me like tea-towels on their heads.

 

But the very epic nature of the story of Abraham might make us think that it is very different, very far-removed, from our lives.

 

Can we, in our lives, be like Abraham in our faith?

I believe we can. Going back to the three ways in which Abraham journeyed with God:

1.   We can we make time for prayer & worship & so meet with God where we are.

2.   We can respond to what God tells us – through small promptings as well as those few times we might know we are hearing God’s voice.

 

3.   We can accept that we take our journey in stages, and that God never gives us more than we can cope with.

 

I have my own very small example of this kind of guidance from last weekend.

I was trying to visit someone in Withybush – I hadn’t managed to find them. Praying to myself something like “I hope they are OK & they know God is with them wherever they are” as well as thinking “well that was a bit of a waste of time” - I started to head for the exit. As I stepped past a man cleaning the floor he noticed the dog collar and asked ‘are you a minister in Pembroke Dock, by any chance?’ – I said ‘No, quite a few other places, but not there’. 

‘Would you mind visiting a lady on this ward for me?’

I said ‘No, as long as she’s happy with that’. He took me into the ward, spoke to one of the nursing staff, and took me in to a lady in a side room. She was delighted that she had mentioned to the cleaner that she’d like to see her minister, and he had remembered that and found her one – me! We had a conversation together and then prayed together. I made sure to thank the cleaner as I left the ward, and explained that what he’d done meant that my visit hadn’t been a waste of time after all. We both said “God bless you!”. 

 

This is just a little example of people being open to God’s promptings and so being guided to bring each other a sense of purpose and peace. Like Abraham we can trust and have faith that God will guide and direct us – not only as individuals but as communities, as people relating to one another and to God.

 

Our faith in God can steer us through the big decisions and upheavals of life, like Abraham; our faith can help us hold firm when life around us feels to be full of rapid and uncertain change; and the faith in the God who holds us in his arms will guide us through the journey of our life – (fed at this table) our whole life through. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.