Faith: We Are No Longer Explanation Addicts

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” – Hebrews 11:8

Who does this anymore? Who among the followers of God is willing to hear a unilateral command from God, and obey it, no questions asked? In our day of spreadsheets, annual forecasts, precision diagnostics and professional arbitration hearings, where are the believers who can discern God sending them forth into their unclarified futures, and respond to that call from Him in trusting obedience? We live in the generation of information on demand, but God has never agreed to enter into that kind of arrangement with His people. He gives commands and promises, but often withholds explanations. Explanations which we have become addicted to.

He still leads those who look to Him on faith, those who trust His unchanging character and those who obey His undefeated Word.

I love the fact that the writer of Hebrews makes it a point to tell New Testament believers that Abraham was, in a singular interaction with his God, called to do several things by faith:

 

• Abraham was to leave a life that he knew

• Abraham was to move toward an unspecified place that he did not know

• Abraham was to view this departure from the known to the unknown as the means to his inheritance

• Abraham was to obey, knowing next to nothing of what God had in store for him

• By faith, Abraham obeyed God and shared in an adventure

 

Who among us does this anymore? Who moves with faith that is not weighed down by an unhealthy presumption that God is obligated to give us full disclosure before leading us into the new? It is likely that our lives will hold richer depth when we abandon the notion that God must provide a full syllabus before He begin to teach us His next lessons. The absence of holy adventure in the life of modern Christians is a telltale sign that we are living by something less than Abraham’s faith.  Perhaps if we check our hearts we may find that, for a very long time, we have presumed that God would squish down His glorious inheritance for us into the pint-sized overnight bag of the paltry American Dream.  We might have assumed that He would never call us to forsake the comforts of what we already know, and audaciously call us to head forth into what only He knows. Friends, faith is evidenced in lovingly obeying a God who is too good for us to doubt.  Just because we are comfortable in the place which we have dug out for ourselves does not mean that we are safe there.  The safest place for all of us is to be where God has designated, engaged in what He has determined for us.  Anything outside of that, no matter how familiar and safe it makes us feel, is a dangerous place for us to hold on to. Yes, outward security may be the most dangerous place for all of us if it does not have God’s plan at its epicenter. Abraham packed up and left all that he had ever known… in order to be with the God he barely knew, in a land that he knew nothing about.

That is faith.  Faith is saying, “O.K., Father. I trust you. Yes, Father, I will obey you. Please, Father, lead the way.”

Abraham did this and was called “the friend of God” (James 2:23).

I intend to be a friend to God, too.  I do not have a detailed map.  There is no need for me to pack my GPS. Jesus told us all that we will know His voice. He speaks daily and clearly when we have trained our hearts to hear Him. He has a place to which He is leading all of us who trust Him. It is a gloriously good land, a place of promised inheritance, a life of precisely designated abundance…discovered by those who will be like Abraham:

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” – Hebrews 11:8