On hanging out in a
desert and building Altars (Still)
Genesis 13
So Abram gets the heck out of Egypt. He is back at the
Altar, back talking with God, back where he is supposed to be. Notice the clear
back track to where he last encountered God. In fact after they arrive at the
Altar Abram calls on the name of the Lord. This is important for us as we hopelessly wander away from
God. We need to backtrack to the last place of encounter. Run don’t walk. We so
often hide in shame when we need to return to the altar and begin to worship again.
Next sentence, quick transition: Abram has another little problem. He has got a
lot of stuff post Egypt fiasco. He looks around and it occurs that Lot has a
bunch of stuff as well. Apparently they both have so much stuff that it does
not all fit in the new place they have settled. Lot and Abram have got an old
fashioned problem: Too much stuff and not enough space. Time for a new place?
Abram approaches Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between
our herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you? Separate
yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if
you take the right hand then I will go left.”
So this is not rocket science. Lot looks around and he makes
his choice based on sight. One direction is the Jordan Valley. It has super
cool vegetation. It has a water source. It is the obvious choice. We can go all
religious here or we can see the choice he made as the one we would all make.
Quick pretend thought process. That land over there looks good. God is blessing
that land so there I will go. Lot does not have to be thinking in the flesh, he
just has to have an understanding of God that leads to prosperity. That makes
him pretty normal. So it does not matter what is motivating him. He can be in the flesh like most
scholars argue or he can be following God the way he thinks God leads. (More on this problem in a moment) At the
end of the day it does not matter. Lot is not God’s man(Hard Word), Abram is. Lot could
have chosen the other direction and the story is unchanged. God is still with
Abram. That is the truth of it.
So depending on all sorts of circumstance the irony is that
Lot does not choose left or right but chooses the way they are facing. He
chooses East. So on to what is God
doing with Abram. Abram will now go Southwest, which is of course is the direction
he is supposed to be headed in any way. Oh this God. Southwest is not fertile yet. It is not fertile until
Canaan. For now west is desert, still. So by taking Abram to the desert God protects him. He brings him into
deeper revelation and need of God and he removes him from the place that man
would choose. Oh sure Abram has plenty of shenanigans in him but that is for later. And sure enough Lot goes hanging out where man would pick and
meets up with all kinds of trouble. This sounds like us a lot. We are more
often Lot than Abram. It is just true. We find ourselves entangled with the
ways of man more often than we even will admit to. We often do this because we
have a fully man created understanding of God. We do this because if we get a
little off correct understanding of God then we will follow that path in a very
straight line, which with a very small understanding of simple math will lead
us forever further from God’s path. (think ray.Think moving away from the point
for infinity.) Pretty soon we are explaining all kinds of things that are
crazy. Pretty soon we are rearranging all of God’s truths to make sense with
the culture that surrounds us. Pretty
soon we are explaining how God is all love and grace and then we are moving
God’s morality to be more modern. We are helping God update so he does not
sound like some disgruntled grandfather. Pretty soon there is no hell and
people just need to be kind and have good hearts and as long as we are loving
pretty much everything is permissible because God understands that we are all
just some sinners after all. All this happens with one simple choice to go
east, just one choice to angle away from the point. Sure I am this crazy person
and I get that, except that well, I’m taking my chances with what the Bible
says is correct. I’m hoping I look more like John the Baptist than Lot. That’s
what I’m going for anyway. So I am leaving it there.
God tells Abram, “ I will make your offspring as the dust of
the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth (Oh God and dirt)
your offspring also can be counted.
As far as we can tell God does not talk to Lot at all. This is God. He
talks to who He wants to talk to. Lot gets to deal with all the crazy people
and Abram picks up his tent and moves west. He puts his tent down in wherever nowhere
is and he builds an altar. He does this because putting down an altar is
hypercritical. Here is the deal. If we don’t put down altars to God all we have
is our memory of God. But when we can see where we’ve been with God and see
where we are going with God we can choose God far easier than say, oh I don’t
know, trying to remember if God ever spoke to us in the first place.(while surrounded by unbeliever and believers who say God doesn't really talk does He?) Think Satan, "Did God really say?" Without
the Altar we start wandering back to where all the fertile ground was. But if we have put down something
external from ourselves that says, “This is where God is.” Well we can run to
that. Even when it seems to make more sense that God must be with all the
people having all the fun in the fertile spot. God gives us place so we can
find the light when we’ve edged back into the dark. Make it tangible. Always
make it tangible. God understands this. That is why He thought of the altar in
the first place.
