June 21, 2019
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It was a wonderful/awful day in my life - the day my mother took my hand and walked me the two blocks over to Park Manor School in Chicago. It was the day I went to school for the first time. Kindergarten, here I come! It was exciting, but it was hard, too. We didn't do any pre-school stuff back then - my family didn't even go to Sunday School. So here was little Ronnie leaving the safety of his apartment, leaving his mother, leaving everything that was safe and familiar for a place I had never been. It sounds a little silly, knowing what I know now. Still, the fears and the feelings were very real then. But if I hadn't left home and stepped into the unknown called school, I would have missed so much!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Time to Leave."
Starting school is no longer an issue for most of us. But leaving what's safe to step into the unknown is very much an issue for many of us. And some of us are refusing to take the step that will ultimately enlarge our life, like starting school enlarged mine.
Abraham is held up in the Bible as a model of faith that we should all emulate. And it's interesting to note the very first word God ever spoke to Abraham, at least that we know (and he was called Abram actually at that time). Abraham's response, as well, is worth noting. In our word for today from the Word of God, Genesis 12:1, it says, "The Lord said to Abram, (ready? Here's His first word) 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you." In other words, "Leave everything that's your security, everything you know, for a place you don't know but I do." Abram's response? "So Abram left, as the Lord had told him."
That willingness to leave at the Lord's command opened up a whole new world for Abraham and for his family in what would become the Jews' "Promised Land." But first he had to "leave." Most of the major advances in our lives begin by taking the risk of leaving. Moses had to leave his "comfy" life as a shepherd in Midian to become the deliverer of God's people. Peter had to leave the security of his business to become a world-impacting leader for Jesus Christ.
And God's expanding of your life may depend on you taking a great faith-step in the near future. Leaving what is familiar and safe and secure - what seems economically feasible. God's great adventure often begins with a command to leave - to leave what is geographically familiar, relationally familiar, and methodologically familiar. And God usually doesn't show you the whole picture of what He's leading you into, just that next step. It's take a step, see a step, take a step, see a step. He asked Abraham to leave for a future that was described simply as "the land I will show you." God wants you to trust the Planner, not the plan.
Maybe your Lord has sent this message today into your life to give you one more encouragement to obey His leading to let go of something safe and follow Him into something so much bigger and so much better, but largely unknown. Do what He's telling you to do. If you don't, I guess you'll be like a child who refuses to leave the safety of Mommy to go into the unknown of the first day of school. You will miss the step that will enlarge your whole life and take you into God's great adventure.