Devotion: Without A Map
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As a kid growing up in Michigan, I loved when we went on vacation. Back then, my family almost always drove to where we were going which could be traveling to Ohio to some of the amusement parks or Northern Michigan or Louisiana to visit my Dad’s relatives.
For me, the excitement would start several days before we left. Mom would drive downtown to the local AAA office to get maps and guidebooks for the trip. The most exciting thing was when the salesperson would put together the Triptik. If you or someone you know was a member of AAA, you know what a Triptik is. The name is a play on words because the collection of maps looked like a triptych, a painting that was divided in three sections. One the salesperson had gathered the necessary maps they came back with a red marker and drew the suggested route to our destination, showing where there might be construction and the like.
Most people like to use a map to get to their desired destination. It just makes sense to know who to get someplace. No one likes being lost.
And yet, Abram took a long journey without a map, he went out on faith in God. Abram, later called Abraham, lived in a place called Haran. The text says he was 75 years old as the story begins.
Abraham was probably living a good life. It wasn’t all that he wanted; I could imagine that he would have loved for Sarai to have given him a child, but besides that things were good.
Then he hears God speaking to him. “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you.”
The scripture never says what Abram thought about what God has said. But I have to believe that he did. Most people would. Yeah, the whole blessing talk was nice, but leave his home? Leave all that was familiar to him? God was calling him to a place that God would show him. In essence, Abram was driving while God was in the passenger seat. God knows where they are going. It’s up to Abram to find out how to get to their destination with help from God.
We need to hear this story of Abram and Sarai because we live in a world where everything is planned or at least makes a good effort to be planned. We tell our children to do good in school and then go to college so that they will get a good job. We all expect that once we hit 62 or 65 or 67 we will retire and enjoy ourselves. We want our lives to be logical, to be planned out.
But the thing is, if we are God’s children, if we follow Christ, then we have to live a life of faith. Abram had to have faith to leave everything he was familiar with and go to a place he knew nothing about. He had to have faith that God would make a nation from him and Sarai even though they weren’t able to have children. He had to travel without a map.
Most of us aren’t being called to move to some remote island in the Pacific or something else that grand. But we are at times called to do things that are out of our comfort zones. We are called more often than not in our daily lives, to walk by faith.
The thing is that while we don’t have a map, we do have God. Abram trusted God. That trust would waver at times as it did with Abram. But we still must trust that God is leading us even though we don’t know where in the world we are going.
I still love maps. I personally wish I had a map to tell me where I was going. But the thing is, life is a whole lot more interesting without a map. Life is more interesting stepping out in faith in God.