Walking with Abram

 “So pack your bags. We’re moving to Alaska on Tuesday. I’m excited to see the auroras, and plus God told me to do it.” If my husband said this to me, I would call his doctor for an appointment quickly. You don’t move on a whim. Yet that in essence is what God asked of Abram, to leave his home in Ur of the Chaldeans to settle in the land of Canaan. And he obeyed. Just like that. That in itself is astonishing to me, but so is one other verse in Genesis 17:1. The Lord asked Abram to walk with him. “Walk with me and be trustworthy.” Such a short line, but what an impact! To walk with God! That could mean to keep the Lord in your heart and to lead a blameless life, as much as you are able to do it; however, when I first read it, I took it literally. That was how the verse affected me. It was an invitation to walk with the Creator of the Universe, whose mind conceived its galaxies, nebulae, countless stars, atoms, quarks, and strings, the whales, spiders, penguins, trees, plants, flowers, the microscopic world, and you and me! To walk with this Being of Infinite Power and Compassion, who wants to make a covenant with you! How could one bear it? I don’t think that people today feel the impact of that line. This isn’t only the God of visions, but the God who wants to accompany you in person on your life’s journey!

 The sad fact to me is that the Biblical writer did not leave a description of God. Was He a Being of Light or did He look like a regular person, dressed like a Bedouin? Perhaps God was felt as a Presence only. Why didn’t the author elaborate? Why did he think it unnecessary to do so? As a modern person, I would seize on the opportunity or perhaps Abram thought the less that he said about the encounter the better.

 I have a friend who believes that Abram created the story of God’s intervention in his reality to move his people to another land as a fiction to make his motives more legitimate. The move would be arduous and lengthy, a trip into the unknown. People might not complain so much if they thought that a higher power had ordained it.

 I’d like to think that my friend was wrong, that what was said here was not a metaphor, but an actuality. Why build parameters around God? Why can’t we accept his being with Abram at face value?

 My hope is that someday God will walk with me, not to change my geographic location, but on my deathbed to beckon me, just as He did to Abram, “to come walk with Him” into Paradise.

 Today think about God actually walking with you, and how that thought could make a difference in your life if you imagined Him by your side as your companion and friend.

S. Becker