Bible in a Year, Day 7: Why God Called a Pagan

Today's reading

Today's reading is Genesis 12, where God calls Abram to leave what he knows and follow him.

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who treats you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

(Genesis 12:1-3, WEB)

Reflection

Pastor Jack Graham begins with who God called. Abram was an idol worshiper living in a pagan land, comfortable in Ur of the Chaldeans, with a life that was going nowhere. As Graham put it, "Abraham was anything but great when God found him." God chose him because he decided to do something extraordinary out of someone ordinary.

Look at the words God uses: "I will make you." Graham calls that the language of an artisan, a potter shaping clay. The promise came wrapped in a command to leave the past, the family and the land behind. When God spoke, Abram responded and moved in faith, and Graham says that is when his life and the history of the world changed.

Centuries later, Jesus stood on a shoreline and saw fishermen mending their nets. They had no credentials and no religious pedigree, yet he told them the same thing God told Abram: follow me and I will make you. Graham reminds us that Peter was impulsive, Matthew was a hated tax collector, and Thomas kept questioning. "Jesus didn't choose the impressive, he chose the responsive."

Then Graham turns to you. The same Jesus who called Abram and Simon Peter is calling you. In his words, "He's not looking at your resume. He's looking for your response." God's plan is always bigger than our own capacity, so he invites us to depend on him, and Graham sums it up this way: "The greatest ability is availability."

Graham also notes that Abram's trust was tested soon after he set out. Famine spread across the land, and Abram's eyes drifted toward Egypt. If you have taken a step of faith and then hit a hard season, you are in familiar company. A first step is the start of following, and the promise stays with the one who made it.

Take it with you

• What is God calling you to do today?
• What familiar thing is he asking you to leave behind?
• What uncertain step is he inviting you to take? If you think you are not ready, Graham says it doesn't matter: get ready and follow him.

Prayer

Lord, you found Abram in a land of idols and made him into something he could never have become alone. You call ordinary people today, and I am one of them. I do not have the credentials, but I can be available. Show me what to leave behind and give me courage for the next step, even when I cannot see where it leads. Shape me as you promised. In Jesus' name, Amen.