Do you ever feel the Lord leading you into a strange land? A place that makes you uncomfortable, where you don’t know what will happen next?

He’s doing that to me right now – edging me more and more out of my comfort zone. He’s got me volunteering in ministries that I am totally uncomfortable with. I’m the kind of person who likes to know all the details, and exactly what the next step will be. And that’s just not happening with all this new stuff.

God also has me teaching in my local church, and I actually recorded a podcast for the church (I was shaking like a leaf the whole time!). Yep, stretched beyond my very comfortable zone.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you…So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Genesis 12:1, 4 (NASB)

I wish I could be like Abraham. When God told him to leave his home, he left. No questions, no arguments, no rationalizing why he absolutely could not go. Scripture doesn’t tell us what Sarai’s response was to God’s command to leave. If it had been me, it would have gone something like this:

“But, Abe, where are we going?”
“Wherever the Lord leads, Sarai.”

“How long will it take us?”
“God’s timing, Sarai.”

“We can’t leave our home and family.”
“Our family is whomever God puts in our lives, our home is wherever He is.”

Now here’s the thing about Abraham’s travels. The land where he felt like a stranger and a sojourner (Genesis 23:2, 4) was Canaan, the Promised Land. The land of milk and honey, the land of plenty.

 

[tweetthis]When God moves you into a strange land, it could be your place of promise.[/tweetthis]

Though I’m scared half out of my wits doing all these new things, and though I don’t like that I don’t know the next step or even what’s going on, I will do what Abraham did. I will take the next step of extraordinary faith that God asks me to take. And after that, I will take the next step again. I will continue to be faithful to do what He tells me to do, even when my whole being is cringing with fear.

Why?

Because I want to go to the Promised Land. Are you coming with me?

Grace be with you,