The Remnant's Call

“The Lord had said to Abram,

‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household

And go to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation

And I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

And you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

And whoever curses you I will curse;

And all peoples on earth

Will be blessed through you.’”

 

            The first three lines reveal what God is actually doing in his Great Story, with his mission for the remnant: bringing the dead to life.

Those first three lines reveal exactly how insane this God’s plan is.

            See, the problem is, what we call alive, God knows to be dead. And what we would say is dead or defeated, our Father would passionately look upon and say, well actually, that is liberated.

 

            The woman who turns the other cheek, we mock; for she is unrealistic in her ideals of peace. She doesn't understand the way the world works. But God looks at her and knows the truth: she is one of his Kingdom. She is one indwelt by his Spirit.

Everything is backwards. He is dismantling all our walls which house the world’s great wisdom and he is building a new house with the foundation of his cross.

These three lines demonstrate this.

            The Lord told Abram to leave his country, his people and his father’s household.

 

What is left?

Imagine if you were told¸ by an invisible voice (whom you think is God), to leave your home, all your friends, your job, your bank accounts, your church, everything that is familiar, and just go. Just leave it and go. You and your family abandon your entire old life (which you did not know was old until this voice said it was old) and start walking toward an unknown land in order to begin a new life that you know nothing about other than an invisible voice said is out there. Does that sound romantic?

What is God asking? He is asking Abram to go and die.

God is asking Abram if he will consent to be, figuratively (and perhaps literally), killed.

God is saying to Abram in no less words, ‘Your old life is done. You are dead there. The country you thought you knew, your Father’s household to whom you thought you belonged, your certain inheritance in the future and all parts of your identity which you think defines who you are, that’s all gone. Everything you call life I know as death. Do you understand me? What you think you know as life is actually killing you. And if you want to save yourself, if you want to save your family, if you want to live a true life, the real one I made for you and for all my children, then you must die to what you think you know. You are to die to this old life and go to a land I will show you. There, and only there in that new land will I give you a new life, a new name, a new identity, and it’s a better one…It’s mine.’

            We do not know anything of Abram before God showed up unannounced, and began to do what God always does—meddle in places we did not ask him to. We do not know if Abram was comfortable or happy in his old life, but we must suspect that in the very least, he considered himself to be living a life. And this nosy, pestering, invisible God comes along and asks Abram to start walking in the desert. He asked Abram to leave it all, to leave absolutely everything behind, become utterly nothing…in faith that somehow, some miraculous way, he would gain a new life, supposedly a better one then at present.

 

Arise….come and see…I promise it is better

God I cannot see, you know that. Why would you ask me to come see when you know I cannot?

Arise…come and see…I promise I am more

But you know my legs don’t work! That’s malicious God. You know my legs are broken. And even if they weren’t I’m trembling in fear. Literally! I am shaking with fear right now!

Arise…come and see…I promise…

Promise what? What do you promise! God, I’ve forgotten what you said! Please God, just say it one more time!

Arise…come and see

But what if you’re wrong! What if this is all in my head! What if I sink or fall or get robbed, or worse…killed! What if I die! What then God!

Arise…come

You fool! You’re an absolute fool God! Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do! Any idea at all! You’re asking me to die! You’re asking me to kill myself! But of course you don’t, because you sit on your golden throne on your golden roads with your minion angels and you don’t give a damn about us down here! You naïve fool, you stupid, naïve fool! I hate you! I hate you!

Arise…

O father…father…please, father…forgive…I don’t know what to do…father I’m so scared. I’m so afraid. father I’m terrified…I’m terrified…But I love you …I love you so much father…so, so much…ok

            I feel like I have had this conversation with God at least twenty times in life. I am sure you have had similar ones. This is how our childlike Father likes to speak to us; short, terse, gentle, infuriating requests for us to follow him which we so badly want to resist. And if anyone else made these requests, it would be more than easy to ignore. But for some reason, when he speaks, when he makes these requests, his words are so horribly attractive! His words, though maddeningly repetitive and laconic, always, and I mean always, penetrate us straight into our innermost soul. They grip us at the infinite bedrock of our unseen soul and they begin to slowly infect us with their unwanted pulsations of hope.

His words are stupid, but for some reason, we cannot shake the thought that he is certainly not stupid. In fact, when he speaks his stupid words I feel like I am the stupid one for not believing them sooner.

 

 

            This is the conversation God has with each one of us right before he plunges us into the dark, dying waters of the old earth only to pull us up into fresh, new, invigorated life. This is how it always works…and it always sucks.