Lenten devotions 2008

Mon, 11 Feb 2008

FEB. 12 - THE CHANGING OF PLACE
By Luke Gascho, executive director of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College

SCRIPTURE: Genesis 12:1-4a (NRSV)
Scroll down for complete Scripture.

DEVOTIONAL:
What a move for Abram! Moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar is hard. The changes are beyond what we feel we can handle. The losses can be so stunning that the move is like a death. But Abram responded to God's command by setting out on a journey that forever changed his life -- and history.

At age three, I moved with my family from the "home place" in Nebraska to northern Minnesota. We left a multigenerational setting to go to a place where we knew no one. My parents made the change with grace -- and I'm the better for it. Among other things, my passion for caring for the Earth was enhanced by growing up in that setting of woods, lakes and fields.

Having a sense of belonging within a place is an important part of our human ecology. This intentional awareness adds meaning to our relationships with all things around us. There is comfort in this familiarity. But there is also the potential that familiarity may become a blinder to what is detrimental in our place. God knew this to be true for Abram -- hence the call to move.

Are we willing to move as Abram did? The changing of place is like a new birth experience. Sometimes we are enamored by the new -- and in other ways we may be at a total loss. We grieve what we left behind and long for the old. But listening and responding with obedience to God's wise call is part of our hope, salvation and renewal.

SCRIPTURE: Genesis 12:1-4a (NRSV) 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.
Posted at 15:31 #



Disclaimer:
The views and beliefs expressed in the devotional piece prepared by each individual reflect their own spiritual growth journey and thoughts, and while created in a campus environment that encourages thoughtful questions and reflection on biblical Scripture and contemporary Christian themes, do not necessarily represent the official institutional positions of Goshen College or Mennonite Church USA.