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And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  Genesis 12:2  ESV

Few words in our Christian language are misunderstood more than the word ‘blessing.’ Because I am so prone to believe that earth should be my personal ‘heaven’, I assume it means something it really doesn’t. When my expectations are shattered, I’m angry with God for supposedly breaking His promises. 

Blessing means that I am graced with spiritual prosperity.

If I live in a crippled marriage, I can still be fruitful. My inner peace is not determined by whether I am loved by others. The promises of God bear the fruit of peace, hope, and a confidence that God rules over the unrighteous. I don’t have to make things fair.  He does that for me even on days I don’t yet see the evidence.  I believe that my faith sanctifies my household and I use my spiritual authority to engage in warfare by speaking scripture over my living space and over each member of my family.

If I live with cancer, I can still be fruitful. Momentary grace and spiritual stamina are promised to me as I immerse myself in the Word and in the presence of the Spirit. His love and compassion produce peace, hope, and confidence. By faith, I know that He is sovereign over the curse of disease and death. As often as needed I preach to my own soul and defer to the hope Jesus offers.

I am blessed, even in hardship. I remember that my spiritual forefathers, the prophets, and the disciples, entered the kingdom through much tribulation, but they held onto the promises of God and finished their lives with their faith intact. 

Your Word affects everything that afflicts my heart. Your Spirit comforts me in the intangible. Amen

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  Genesis 12:1  ESV

A father is given divine rights to exert authority over his child.  He shapes his identity.  He establishes his parameters and boundaries.  He sets future goals for him in place and then corrects and encourages along the way.  Obedience and honor are the responsibilities of the child.  While giving honor will last a lifetime – obedience will not.  That child, if he comes to faith, will be adopted by another Father and everything will turn on its end.

As an adult, I leave the authority of my earthly father and step under the headship of my heavenly Father.  God’s commands take precedence over all other influences.  As His child, I look to Him to shape my identity, establish parameters and boundaries, and set goals, knowing He will correct and encourage along the way.  Obedience and honor are my responsibility.  Giving honor will last for all eternity – and so will obedience.

No wonder Jesus said that no one could follow him unless they were willing to leave father and mother, brother, and sister.  The changing of allegiances is the proof of salvation and this very dynamic is cataclysmic within families, especially if the earthly family does not know God.

In this context, the LORD speaks and calls Abram to leave his family and everything that is familiar.  This leaving will not be just physical, but spiritual.  He is to turn his back on the gods of his ancestors and of his countrymen.  He is to do what no one has ever done; leave everything and go west with an unknown destination.  Abram will do all of this because a God he didn’t know all that well yet called him by name and gave him a command and a promise.

The call of God on my life will also be cataclysmic too. There will be people who will criticize, family loyalties will be threatened, and church friends may consider my steps to be too radical. They cannot understand it as I understand it because the only one who hears the call (and the daily revelations that go with it) is the one with whom God speaks.

A life of pilgrimage is not for the fainthearted.  Strength, direction, grit, and endurance come to the pilgrim who holds the hand of his Father every step of the way.

When my obedience is tested with famine, breathe over me Your encouragement.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot.  Genesis 11:27  ESV

Ten generations after Noah, through the blessed lineage of Shem, Terah was born.  Though Shem walked with God, it didn’t take long for his descendants to be become polytheistic.  Their prominent god was the moon.  In later times, with moon worship in tact, food was laid out at night to absorb the rays of the moon, which were thought to have power to cure disease and prolong life.  Not much has changed, really.  One of the most beautiful and current songs of our day is made famous by the talented Celtic Women.  The name?  The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

It was in this spiritual environment that Abram was born.  His home was not ‘Yahweh friendly’ yet it was out of his family line that Jesus would be born.  Can children with holy callings arise out of spiritual wastelands?  Yes!  A resounding yes. 

That answer should comfort any who fear that their past is too scarred for God to use them.  We place far too much emphasis on our past to try to determine the possibilities of future success.  We fear for children if we have an unbelieving spouse, fearing that the ungodly influence they suffer at home will prevent them from hearing the call of God in their lives.  Yet how many Christian leaders, like Abram, have come to faith simply by coming face to face with Jesus Christ!

Once God decides to open the eyes of an unbeliever to the beauty and glory of His Son, Jesus, any degree of spiritual blindness is instantly cured.  Nothing can stop or hinder it. A child of an alcoholic, a child of an atheist, a child of a pedophile, any of these could be the next evangelist.  No toxic childhood environment can thwart the call. 

What kind of obstacles have me worried today about a relative, friend, spouse, or child?  Do I really believe their spiritual condition to be hopeless?  How small is my God!  How puny is my faith!  Abram, growing up with gods on the shelves in his home, is about to hear Yahweh’s voice for the first time.  Like Saul, it will be such a powerful encounter that he will sacrifice everything to follow.

Give me the grace to kill all despair with faith!  In Jesus’ name, Amen

Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.  Genesis 12:6  ESV

Many have prayed for the will of God, followed His voice, and experienced complete disillusionment when they found themselves in hostile surroundings.  They blame God for being unloving or they blame themselves for being poor listeners.  Experiencing angst within the will of God is common and should not surprise God’s children.

When Abram encountered the Canaanites, hostile company epitomized, he didn’t pick up and move on.  He settled there.  Though he was the only Yahweh worshipper, He built an altar.  With far less revelation of God than I have, he was strong enough in his faith to be faithful.

Some years back, our family lived in a hostile environment.  We begged, daily, for release.  We were willing to move anywhere and do anything to escape our surroundings.  Surely, we reasoned, God wouldn’t want us to endure such a place.  Yet, every request for a move away was met by the silence of God.  One morning in prayer, the Spirit of God spoke to me through a verse in Psalms.  “Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.”  Psalm 37:3    We were to learn how to make our little home a place where the glory of God rested.  We were to understand how to eat the sumptuous spiritual meal God provided daily amid our enemies.  We stayed three more years before God moved us out and that time proved to be one of the most formational times, spiritually, in our family’s history.

Many live in hostility.  Unfortunately, it can be with a husband, wife, child, or aging parent.  It can even be in a place of ministry.  Scorn and ridicule are the backdrops of daily life.  Instinct says to escape.  Do anything to run from such discomfort.  But God’s way is for His child to learn how to make Him their home.  The glory of Christ can descend on the darkest environment.

Give your child today spiritual grit, a willingness to stay in a tormenting place, and peace in submission.  Amen

And you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘If you do not listen to Me and walk in My law, which I have set before you, and if you do not listen to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I have sent to you again and again even though you did not listen, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city an object of cursing among all the nations of the earth.’  Jeremiah 26:5

Today, I am breaking away from Genesis. 

This detour comes after having a dream last night that I was in, and was one of, a group of braggers.  We boasted of being on the right side of the political divide, of being aligned with brilliant voices that make up the critical thinkers of the most famous conservative news outlet.  We all claimed to be God’s warriors, battling His causes by fighting evil.  We even broke into prayer, asking Jesus to come as a victor and to make everything right, and to vindicate His people.  In my dream, we did not look at all like worshippers, but warriors.

I woke up and realized that this was not dreamlike fiction.

God is not impressed, nor pleased, with our stand on current events if we point the finger and fail to pray for those in authority. Every day, our president and members of congress are called idiots and losers by God’s people.  Name-calling is hateful, delivered with tones of disgust.  Prayerful filters are often missing, giving way to rants on social media, in small gatherings, and even in the hallways of our local churches.  We are so sure that we are right, that God is with us, that we’ve lost our head and our edge.    

• Jesus, our Prophet, implores us to consider the log in our own eyes regarding the very sins for which we want to stone others.  Pride, revenge, and rebellion.

• Jesus, our Priest, calls us to humble intercession, imploring us to pray for our enemies.  Our anger is epic but where are our tears?  Wielding truth without love nullifies the Truth in others ears.

• Jesus, our King, calls us to abandon our swords as we attempt to overthrow the Roman empire.  We are to recover the mantle of spiritual authority we abdicated when we became a brood of little kings, failing to defer to the King of Kings.    

Paul asked the Galatian believers who had bewitched them.  We are wise to consider the question for ourselves.  False prophets abound and beg for our attention.  The wisest thing for us to do is to stop. 

Stop talking. 

Stop marching. 

Stop casting judgments that have long ceased being righteous. 

Are we on the Lord’s side? 

Am I?  I’m still. I’m silent. I’m brought low. Show me.  Amen

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves…  Genesis 11:4  ESV

How small God must have seemed to them.  Solidarity was created among the peoples of this region to think that they could build a tower tall enough to reach into the heavens and, in the process, make a name for themselves. 

People were never meant to be the objects of another’s worship.  We are to be worshippers.  We were never meant to make a name for ourselves.  God’s name is to be our banner.  It’s a tragedy is when people spend their life building towers that offer them fame; towers in business, towers in ministry, towers in beauty, towers of outstanding talent.  Feeling small, man devises his own sources of healing. All the while, the quest for identity remains earthbound.

In the 1980’s, when my quest for significance consumed me, God began speaking to me about my fears and about identity.  I wrote this song that would allow the names God calls me to wash over my soul.  Anytime I felt inadequate or forgotten, I could sing it.  Over the years, I have recorded different versions of it.  Just recently, Jaime and I resurrected it to sing again at a local event.  We needed to hear it again. 

Earth is an orphanage.  Orphans flounder.  But, God will whisper these truths into the ears of His much-loved adopted children.

GOD GAVE ME HIS NAME

Looking down at the ground

Shadows around me are all I see

They accuse and abuse

Stealing my value, whispering lies to me.

CHORUS

I am a light; I am His bride

An heir to His kingdom; His cross at my side

I am His friend; A daughter and saint

Anointed with love, and mercy and grace

I will stand tall and carry no shame

When I remember God gave me His name.

When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”  Genesis 9:24-25  ESV

Noah is remembered for building the ark but the pronouncement of his curse over Ham’s descendants is made to be a footnote. The curse was not made against Ham though he was the one who had reveled in his father’s nakedness.  The curse was made against Ham’s youngest son who, it is believed, already exhibited some of the same sinful bents as his father.  The sins of the fathers were being visited on the next generation.    Consequences were seen in the moral decay of this young son and all sons to follow.

Noah was God’s mouthpiece to predict the future of Canaan’s descendants.  They would be vile people, the ones the Israelites would have to conquer to enter the Promised Land.  Their morality would be resemblant to Ham’s sinful bent but even more wicked. 

Sometimes, when all I see is depravity, I feel overwhelmed.  To cope, I tell myself that I’m overreacting Perhaps I am not!  Seeds of depravity in one generation will bear fruit in the next.  It may take several hundred years to see the full effects so if I am wise, I won’t be fooled by something that is hardly noticeable.  Even what is subtle should send me to my knees because God instituted a ‘sowing and reaping world.’  Seeds mature and the mature fruit is staggering in size compared to its origins. 

A toddler struggles with lying and lives in a home with no training.  He will grow up to be crafty and manipulative in business.  Years later, as an old man, he will be in full moral decay and bear the shame of disrespect.  A lifetime of deceit will have borne its fruit.  It will be said, “I can’t trust a word he says.”

A young girl who suffers injustice is eaten alive by the need for others to pay for their sins.  She grows up to become a woman who points out the flaws of almost everyone around her.  Years later, as an old woman, she is alone, mostly friendless, and wonders why she fails to have the admiration she feels she deserves.  It will be said of her, “Avoid her!  She doesn’t like anyone!”

“Be hard on sin,” Noah would tell us today.  We should weed the garden of iniquity when weeds are small. 

Lord, you want me to learn from history.  Were it not for your grace, our future inheritances might resemble the likes of the Canaanites! May it not be. Amen

And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.   Genesis 9:22-23  ESV

Noah was drunk.  In his compromised condition, he stripped and lay naked in his tent, fully exposed.  Ham went in and looked upon his father, took in the scene in a way that was immoral, and went to report it to his brothers.  It wasn’t that Ham just glanced and left.  Several translations present a Hebraic picture of looking upon someone with lust and desire and then relishing the exposure.  Noah’s two other sons were honorable.  After hearing the news, they approached their father with their backs turned toward him and covered up his nakedness.

There can be something evil bent in the heart of a child to glory in a parent’s weakness.  If the parent has been a poor one and there is unresolved hurt, a child, no matter the age, might rejoice when the power and grandeur of a parent crumbles.  The need for revenge takes over.  Though I am surprised that Ham (after being saved from worldwide destruction by the faith of his father), is not humble.  Neither is he reverent!

I have no idea what Ham’s issue with his father was but at that moment, his own heart was revealed.  Noah had not been a perfect father, but he was a man of unparalleled faith.  Like David, he had a heart bent toward God and had proven it over the course of a century.

Honoring parents is one of the conditional foundational requirements for God’s blessing.  He created the family and anything that pollutes the beauty of family relationships hurts the heart of the Creator.  Nothing is more tragic than parents who won’t forgive children and children who refuse to forgive their parents.

I remember a line from a movie that struck me.  A son in his forties is having a heated discussion with his mother.  He raises his voice to make a point.  The mother says, “Son, who taught you to be this cruel?”  His answer, “You did, mother.  You did!”  In this hotbed of anger, each is looking for the vulnerability of the other to rise and strike.

Parents aren’t perfect.  Some try their best and fail.  Others don’t pretend to try and obviously fail.  Should all parents be forgiven?  Yes.  To fail to forgive is to hurt, not only the parent but the ones who carry the anger.  I teach my children how to treat me by how they hear me talk about my own parents.  Respect and honor are godly legacies I can pass on.  Unfortunately, disrespect and dishonor can just as easily become hallmarks of family trees.

Your forgiveness covered my sins.  Can I not, in remembrance of Your mercy, cover my parent’s shortcomings?  Drive the point home.  Amen

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.  He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.  Genesis 9:20-21  ESV

Wine is spoken of favorably in scripture.  God asked for wine to be used as an offering in the book of Numbers.   But like anything, when consumed in excess, clear and sound thinking is compromised.

Noah coasted for just a moment.  While he was recounted as a righteous man in the hallmark chapter of the Bible, he was not perfect.  (Nor is anyone else mentioned in Hebrews 11.)  Noah had passed God’s great test of obedience by faithfully building the ark for 120 years.  He withstood the emotional and spiritual challenges of leading his family while knowing the earth would be destroyed.  The flood is now behind him.  The storm has passed, and earth is once again a beautiful place to live. 

For a moment, Noah lost his vigilance, laid his judgment aside, and drank too much.  He stripped himself bare, exposed what he never would have thought of exposing while sober, and succumbed to shame. 

Some years ago, Jaime (my daughter) and I were at a major airport about to board a plane.   At the gate, we stood in line behind our pilot who was checking in with the gate agent.  The smell of alcohol was overwhelming.  Being a peace-loving person to a fault, I was not anxious to have to do something about the situation, but it became apparent that over 300 people were boarding an aircraft, in bad weather, and about to fly cross-country with a severely compromised captain. 

I spoke with the gate agent who attempted to pacify me. I then asked for a supervisor and then had to request his superior.  Now, Jaime and I are the only ones who have not boarded, and the plane is delayed.  Finally, the most senior employee there went on the aircraft and walked off with the pilot in tow.  They approached us, and we were taken back by the strong smell of cologne.  The pilot lamented to me that we would think he might have been drinking while on duty.  Uncomfortable, I was put in a position to have to speak up.  I stood my ground and told him that I had indeed smelled alcohol.  I assured him that we would be boarding the plane but praying for him throughout the flight – that God would override his impaired judgment.

All this is a reminder that any addiction is an impairment.  Nakedness and exposure can be the results.  Under the influence, how many secrets are revealed!  Never am I more vulnerable than after weathering a storm, or after a spiritual victory.

Coasting is for heaven, Lord, not here.  Make me ever vigilant.  Amen

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  Genesis 9:12-13  ESV

When a believer speaks of asking God for a sign, there can be misgivings because it is generally believed that asking for signs is unpleasing to God.  This occurrence in Noah’s story is another confirmation that God is a sign-giving God.  Almost every Biblical covenant has been confirmed by some visual symbol.  The Abrahamic covenant included circumcision.  The Mosaic covenant had the Sabbath.  And, the new covenant had the Lord’s Supper.  God made a covenant with Noah and set a rainbow in the clouds as a sign.

 “But wait!” you might say.  “What about Jesus words in Matthew where he says that only evil and adulterous generations seek for a sign.  He called them wicked and perverse.”  Jesus was referring to a people characterized by rebellion and unbelief.  Jesus was the sign, yet they rejected Him.  In their denial of Him, they asked for another sign.  This was an insult to God, the One who generously shared His Son with humanity.

If I love Christ and walk obediently in His ways, I will encounter times when I’ve prayed about a critical decision but am simply unsure which way to go.  In that instance, I might ask for a sign, or a series of signposts, where God shows me that I’m on the right or wrong path.  Many times, He is very eager to give markers.  He wants me to get it right.  He applauds my obedience and celebrates that I care about making a righteous decision.  We are sheep who need a shepherd. 

Signs are wonderful things, bringing exhilaration and relief.  Sometimes though, they are absent, and God is silent.  This is an opportunity for me to use the wisdom I’ve learned, to process it, seek counsel, and then make the best decision that sits well in my spirit.  Even in this situation, God is sovereign.  The decisions I make where the light is obscured are still in plain sight of a Father who promises guidance.  The indwelling Spirit of God shapes thoughts and conversations.  He is a God of subtlety as well as a God who gives rainbows.

You took Moses by the hand and gave him, and Your children, signs along their journey.  Thank you for eagerly leading me as You led our spiritual fathers.  Amen