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. 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. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb. (Genesis 12:1-9, NRSV)
What made Abram so special that he got singled out for this blessing?
He did not do anything yet that would make him any more worthy of finding favor with the Lord. He was the son of Terah, son of Nahor, who continues back to Shem son of Noah. But he was no different than anyone else.
But Abram almost sacrificed his only son for God. Yes, you are correct, but that was long after this. At this point, Abram had done nothing to win the favor of God and that is really what is upsetting to most of us, but should be the thing that really gives us hope.
You see we get upset because others seem to get the good stuff from God. They are nothing special, why I can herd goats better than Abram, why did he get God’s blessing? Because God wanted to give him a blessing.
You see it is not because Abram had done something special or was living the way that everyone expected him to. Abram was chosen by God because he was God’s creation and he was enough just as he was.
And if you read the reading again and look for why Abram was blessed you will see that he was blessed to be a blessing. You see each and every one of us is good enough just as we are and were made this way to be a blessing to others.
So to quote the great theologian Jon Bon Jovi in his song Welcome to Wherever You Are “When you wanna give up, and your hearts about to break remember that you’re perfect, God makes no mistakes.”
aSacredRebel 