Genesis 12-13 - God's Call to Abram

I want to start today with the idea of tuning forks. For those of you who don't know what tuning forks are, they are shaped pieces of metal so that when they are struck, they make a vibration that is precisely-pitched. This pitch is then used to tune your instrument such as a piano or violin.

But the tuning fork itself is not what I want to expound upon; it's the idea of resonance. A neat experiment to do is to take two tuning forks of the same pitch; strike one while leaving the other one alone; and the result will be that the tuning fork that was not struck will begin to vibrate on its own because it has picked up the same pitch as its brother.

Abram was attuned to God's voice. God's voice resonated with him and caused him to act.

We often mistakenly lump Abram along with the rest of his family... because Abram was pious, we often make the mistake of thinking the same about his family. But, that's not true. According to Joshua 24:2, Abram came from a line of people who worshiped (actually, I like the Hebrew word here, which means 'served'; it's more participatory and active) other gods.

So can you imagine how hard it would have been for Abram to stay attuned to the true God in and among all the other voices in that household? Yet, Abram was so in-tune with God that all God needed to do was simply say, "Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you." Can you imagine what it would be like to have such a full communion like that with God?

Yet, Abram wasn't perfect. Just as the sound from a tuning fork eventually fades, so our hearing fades when it comes to God's voice speaking to us. Once Abram moved to Canaan, a severe drought and famine arose; and rather than hearing God's voice and trusting what he said, Abram and Sarai moved to Egypt because they figured that they would have a better chance of survival. The plan in and of itself from human terms wasn't necessarily a bad idea; the only problem is that it went against God's plan and so God caused it to fail.

Abram realizes his error and returns back to his sacred place with God - the place where he was attuned to God's voice - Bethel, and again reorients himself back to God's voice.

After this worship, God grants Abram another test as Lot and his family realize they need more space. So, Abram, now re-orienting himself to the life that is God, allows Lot the first pick of the land. As Lot picks the more watered land (which, interestingly enough, is compared to the garden that Adam and Eve where expelled from, and it is the land of Sodom and Gomorrah before they were destroyed...), my guess is that Abram felt somewhat cheated and disheartened.

Yet, it is in this moment in which Abram is disheartened, that again God's voice resonates with Abram as he says, "Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you" (Genesis 13:14b-17).

In our troubles, God speaks to us and gives us words of comfort, words of promise, and words of hope. It is my hope and prayer that the Holy Spirit continually works inside of us as a tuner, orienting our ways so that our lives can resonate with God's heavenly sound of life.

Other questions to think about (and that I didn't have time or space to write about):
- Isn't it interesting how God can work? God speaks creation into existence; and God speaks a nation into existence? Doesn't that give a bit more importance to the idea that we should be listening for God to speak to us since his words are formative and can bring life from nothingness?

- Ever wonder what Sarai must have been thinking through their Egyptian sojourn?