Genesis 14:14 – When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

Revenge must have been eliminated from Abram’s dictionary.  Word gets back to Uncle Abram that Lot was taken captive after the city of Sodom was overthrown by Kedorlaomer.  And instead of saying, “Punk got what he deserved,” Abram decided to engage.

He immediately tried to rescue his nephew.

Abram displayed two characteristics that I want for my life: (1) He had courage that came from God and (2) he was prepared.  We never know when we will be called upon to complete difficult tasks.  Kedorlaomer had just swiftly reconquered five cities with his army and was quite powerful.  Abram had 318 “trained men.”  Paltry.

He knew he had to engage to save Lot and he had courage in God to do so.  Also, he had taken time to train his men for potential conflict.  Are you prepared to take on an unforseen conflict in your life?  Abram had a thriving relationship with God and a group of people to back him up at the drop of a hat when this conflict arose.

The cherry on top is that after Abram’s people had defeated Kedorlaomer, Abram left it for all the people to see what God had accomplished.  Here’s how.  The king of Sodom wanted Abram to keep the goods he returned but Abram rejected the offering.  He refused to take anything from Sodom.  Even though the huge amount of goods would have significantly increased what he could have given to God, he didn’t want the ungodly king of Sodom to say, “I have made Abram rich.”  Instead, Abram wanted him to say, “God has made Abram rich.”

In this case, accepting the gifts would have focused everyone’s attention on Abram or the king of Sodom rather than on God, the give of the victory.  When people look at you and when people look at me, they need to see what God has accomplished in our lives.

Have confidence in God.  Be ready to engage.  Give the glory to God.

Genesis 13:8-9 -  ⁸So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers.  Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”

Abram and his nephew, Lot, and all their flocks and herds and tents and went on their way from Egypt to Negev and then from Negev to a place between Bethel and Ai.  I do not know the size of that place between Bethel and Ai, but in my mind I liken it to Albion, IA.

(side note: remember the days before Hwy 20 was finished and to get to Des Moines from Cedar Falls you had to drive through the ghost-town of Albion off of Hwy 14 and inevitably make a pit stop at the Casey’s cause it was the only thing around?  I think that’s where we pickup with Abram and Lot right now.)

So, Abram and Lot stop in the middle of nowhere and this middle of nowhere was not able to hold their possessions…they were too great.  In addition to having too many possessions, Abram’s herdsman and Lot’s herdsman were making fun of eachother, teasing and playing practical jokes on one another and began to quarrel.  Because of all that…Abram and Lot decide to part company.

Abram took initiative in settling the dispute by giving his nephew the first choice of which land he would like.  That stopped me in my tracks right there because Abram, being older, had the right to choose first.  He clearly opened himself up to be cheated.

I’m so dang competitive, I don’t know if I would have done that.  I’m the oldest of four in my family and when I was younger if it came down to the last piece of cake, and I had to split it with my bro, I would cut the piece in half AND choose which “half” I wanted. There was no way I would even think about being cheated.

But not only did Abram take initiative in resolving the conflict, he let Lot have the first choice of land.  And a few verses later we see that Lot chose the best share of land with available water even though it meant living near Sodom, a city known for its sin.  Lot was greedy, only wanting the best for himself without thinking of anyone else’s needs or what was fair.  And even though he chose the land that was “better” it was near the city of Sodom which was known for being wicked and sinning greatly against the Lord.

That’s life, isn’t it?  A series of choices.  And sometimes what we think is good can end up being the end of us.  We too can choose the best while ignoring the needs and feelings of others.  I’m guilty of it in both decisions big and small.  There are a lot of days where I sit around and watch sports all day.  Game after game after game, all the while we need groceries, recycles haven’t been taken back in months and then also my wife is left to do her own thing.

Lot chose the good pasture and available water and it seemed wise at first.  But he failed to realize that wicked Sodom could provide temptations strong enough to destroy his family.  Meanwhile, after Lot had parted, the Lord said to Abram, “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.”  And Abram was given all the land he could see.

It’s hard to resist selfish choices.  It’s tough to put the desires of others first, even if it’s family.  It’s excruiciatingly difficult to open yourself up to being cheated.  But Abram did all those things.  He shows us how to respond to difficult family situations: (1) take the initiative in resolving conflicts; (2) let others have first choice, even if that means not getting what we want; (3) put family peace above personal desires.

May we all live with such wisdom.

Genesis 12:1 – The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”

The Lord says this to Abram and follows it up by saying he will bless Abram and all peoples on earth will be blessed through him.  How old was Abram when God told him this?  75.  And Abram left as the Lord told him.

Not only did Abram listen to God, the land that God brought him to (Canaan) experienced a famine upon his arrival.  Brutal.  Abram had left his family, his country and his people and now there was a famine in his new land.  This was obvioulsly a test of Abram’s faith of which he passed.  He didn’t question God’s leading when faced with difficulty.

However, the famine was so severe that Abram had to go down to Egypt to live for awhile and it is here where we see Abram try to take over.  He thinks that he must deceive the Egyptians by having his wife tell them that she’s his sister.  Abram feared that if they knew that she was his wife then they’d kill him to get her.

In the end, it causes more trouble.  Abram has pretty much prostituted his wife as Pharaoh now wants to marry her.  But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh for being with Sarai, Abram’s wife.  Pharaoh summoned Abram to ask, “why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?”  Abram and Sarai were then sent away.

How does this relate to your life?  I haven’t ever moved to another country.  During my freshman year of college at Kansas I could feel God leading me back home to go to college at UNI.  It wasn’t a comfortable decision to make, but in the end I believe God was leading me to where I could be of greater service and usefulness for Him, similar to Abram.

So, when I told my parents of my intentions they were surprised and very supportive.  The only problem was a few months after I had returned home I had forgotten about why I was there.  I focused on what I wanted and felt like doing instead of what God had called me to do.  I had quickly degenerated into a bad influence on my younger brothers and sister.  I became more focused on when I could have my next drink than when I could read my Bible or cheer at a sporting event.  Problems multiplied.  But once I’d hit the bottom and realized I needed to change, I never second-guessed God as to why he led me back home.  I looked for new opportunities and better situations to follow Him.

God has tremendous plans for all of us.  He wants us to be great, but it is in His power and doing by which we can be great.  When I try to take hold of the steering wheel in my life things go up in flames.  It is God that will bless me, not Me who will bless me.

God may be trying to lead you to a place of greater service and usefulness for Him too.  Don’t let the comfort and security of your present position make you miss God’s plan for you.  And be ready, because when you are determined to follow God you’ll encounter great obstacles.  Just use the intelligence God gave you and things will be a-okay.

Genesis 11:4 – Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Ever wanted a statue built to your own greatness?

I have.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that I am so good , if only the rest of the world could see how I am that would be sweet.  Obviously, that is flawed thinking.  The people in this chapter built their tower as a monument to their own greatness so that they would not be scattered over the whole earth.

But that’s not what God wanted.

In fact, the Lord came to see the city and the tower the men were building and disliked it.  He thought “man, if they’re doing this now then nothing is going to stop them.”  So he confused their language so they couldn’t understand each other and then he scattered them all over the face of the earth.

These people wanted to maintain their own greatness and never be scattered.  They ended up scattered and unable to understand each other, speaking different languages.  A little more than an irony, I’d say.

I’ve built towers for myself.  I’ve thought before that if I could have a bigger house then I would be set.  Liz and I were looking at a house last year and I thought it would have been fantastic to get it.  Because it was B I G.  And we woulda been good to go.  Not that a bigger house is evil or bad.  But a bigger house became a monument that was for me rather than for God.

Sound silly?  It’s true.  And we do that all the time with things like expensive clothes, entertainment, cars, jobs, vacations, and on and on and on.  Yes, a new house would be nice.  But as I house hunt now it’s not because I need a bigger barn to show everyone else how important I am.  Because I don’t.  We would like to be able to utilize a house for ministry and that changes the focus of house hunting.  The ministry comes before the house.

I don’t hold a home as a monument now.  More importantly, I’ve realized our current home is as great a ministry tool as a new home would be.  I now have an honest appreciation for the home we have and if we never end up moving then that is a-okay.

When we use worldly things to give ourselves an identity and self-worth, they take God’s place in our lives.  We are free to develop in many areas, but we are not free to think we have replaced God.  What “towers” have you built in your life?

Genesis 10:8-9 – Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth.  He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.”

Chapter 10 consists of the family tree of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.  Not too exciting at a glance, but it can be if you really sit down to think about a family tree.  Ever think about your family tree?

In seventh grade we were assigned a family tree project for History class, but this family tree assignment was on steroids.  It didn’t just stop at grandparents or great grandparents…we had to go waaaay back.  It wasn’t too terribly difficult to trace the roots back on my dad’s side, he had a family member that was all over that stuff.  My mom’s side was a bit of a different story.

We struggled to get a lot of the family tree completed and we had to do a lot of digging to fill in each line.  It finally came to a point where my grandma said, “we’ve only got a couple spaces left, let’s create some names…what’s the difference anyway!”  So it was at that moment that great great aunt Edna Lava was born.  Ha, we still joke about making up Edna Lava’s name and sticking her in the family tree assignment and that was a dozen years ago.  We’d even created a personality for “Edna” and talked as if we knew her.

In the lines of the family tree, some people’s entry is a little more than just a name.  There’s an unmistakable quality or personality and stories that go along with it.  This is the case with Nimrod in verse 8 continuing through verse 12.  Within all the names of the family tree of the line of Ham, Nimrod has a paragraph depicting his life.  We learn that he is a great hunter, for instance and we read of his kingdoms.

What will be said about you on your line of the family tree?  There’s a slew of different qualities, attributes, personalities and ways of describing someone and how they lived their life.  What will people say about you?  I’m sure those that know me would have a lot of interesting stories and ways to describe me, but I would hope that people around me would also say, “He really loved Jesus.”  That’s how I want to  live.

Genesis 9:14-15 – Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind.  Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.

This is a very interesting chapter because it includes God’s covenant with us after the flood and then we also get to see Noah get drunk.  We will have now seen both sides of Noah, the beautiful and the ugly.

When Noah stepped out of the ark there was an earth devoid of any human life.  But God gave him a promise which had three parts: (1) never again will a flood do such destruction (2) as long as the earth remains, the seasons will always come as expected (3) a rainbow will be visible when it rains as a sign to all that God will keep His promises.  To this day the promise still holds true.

I’m not a huge nature guy.  I like it but don’t love it.  There are times when I’m enamored by it but it’s not always my no-doubt-about-it pathway to God.  But there is something about a rainbow that really makes me smile and reminds me that I worship a God that does keep promises.  I think that is important to acknowledge.

After the covenant, Noah and his family are going about replenishing the earth and working the soil.  In verses 20-21 we read that Noah has gotten drunk, “Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard.  When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.”  A 600 year old man, drunk, naked, and lying in a tent.  Yikes.

To me, this is part of what makes the Bible real.  Noah is a man who has been faithfully following God, built an ark for over a century, his family is re-populating the world and has now gotten drunk and lay naked in his tent and the Bible doesn’t gloss over it.  Noah is a Biblical Hero and we get to see him fall.

Characters in the Bible are real people.  I’m not sure what sin is out there and documented from the lives of heroes in other religions, but that’s why I like the Bible…it deals with the beautiful and the ugly.  These are real people.  Real people who at the same time have done extraordinary things for God.

I don’t condone drunkenness, I don’t support it or think it’s okay.  I have had my struggles with it.  Similar to my past struggle, Noah got drunk and was a poor example in front of his kids.  What this chapter really helped me with is that even godly people–veeeerry godly people–sin and can be a bad influence on their families.  That was me, I was there. This offers hope for all of us.

In spite of our mistakes, hardships and bad decisions, God is with us and will forgive us our sins.  He wants us to call upon Him to help us with our struggles.  It’s not a free pass to do-what-you-want-you’ll-be-forgiven…God never excuses sin and he hates it.

The thing is, God loves us despite our falling short.  Why?  I don’t know.  But he sent His son, Jesus, to die for us.  And he doesn’t ask for a little bit of you here and a little bit of you there, he has asked for every bit of you.

I want to live a life pleasing to God.

Genesis 8:13-16 – By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth.  Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.  By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.  Then god said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.”

Noah was on the ark for one year.  Even when he saw that the surface of the ground was dry he stayed on the ark for another two months and waited for God to tell him to come out of the ark.  What patience!

All the water was gone on the first day of the first month, I’m sure Noah wanted to get off the boat right then.  But, God knew that even though the water was gone, the earth was not dry enough for Noah and his family to venture out and so Noah continued to wait on the Lord.

Patience takes time.  I constantly tell myself that “patience is a virtue” just because that’s what my dad always said.  I think he said that because it is sometimes what he lacked…I’m the same way.  Now the new phrase between us is “patience is also a form of action” which I really like because saying it makes me feel like I’m doing something.  With patience, Noah was doing something for the Lord.  He was obeying and listening for God’s word.  And it’s not as if the situation was easy to offer patience to, he’d been on a boat with thousands of animals for a year.

We all have difficult times in our lives where we must wait.  Like Noah, we must trust God to give us patience during those difficult times of waiting.  It is worth it.

Genesis 7:13-14 – On that very day Noah and his sons, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons entered the ark.  They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings.

I wonder how Noah felt when his family and all the animals were boarding the ark.  Did it have the feel of a family vacation?  I also wonder how in the world Noah got all those animals on board.  I can hardly get my dog to go to the bathroom in the yard instead of on the deck and here’s Noah…boarding tens of thousands of animals onto a yacht, no problem.  And while I wonder those things, I have no problem with this story whatsoever.

A lot of people have beef with this story.  They have problems with a 600 year old man building a boat and rounding up all the animals for a floating zoo.  They question whether eight humans could have cared for the animals while also sailing the ark, how the special dietary needs of some of the more exotic animals could have been catered for, how the creatures could have been prevented from preying on each other, questions of lighting, ventilation, and temperature control, hibernation, the survival and germination of seeds, the position of freshwater and saltwater fish, the question of what the animals would have eaten immediately after leaving the ark, how they were gathered from all over the world and how they could have returned over devastated terrain.

And to that I say, God had it under control.

What Noah was doing was just as God commanded.  God took care of the details of gathering the animals while Noah was building the ark.  God took care of the lighting, ventilation, temperature and diet.  I think sometimes we have the tendency to do the opposite of what Noah did.  We worry about details over which we have no control.

The problem with worrying over details of which we have no control is that we neglect specific areas that are under control.   Things like attitudes, relationships and responsibilities.  Be like Noah.  Concentrate on what god has given you to do, and leave the rest to God.

Genesis 6:22 – Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

Two things jumped out at me when I read this chapter. First, in verse 3, the Lord proclaimed 120 years out that man was mortal and he would flood the earth if the people didn’t change their ways and, secondly, Noah did huge things for God and the sacrifice was totally worth it.

I knew that God gave Noah a long time to build the ark, but I never thought about that time in terms of the patience the Lord had with those that were doing evil.  God allowed the people of Noah’s day 120 years to change their sinful ways, showing great patience.  Even today he also has given us time to quit living our way and to begin living his way.

When I was in high school I wanted to read the entire Bible.  Funny thing was, I never instilled any discipline to doing it.  And then I put it off by saying “I don’t need this now, I can do it in college.” Right.  Never happened.  Because when I went to college I bargained that I could do it after college.  And then I put it off after college.  I wanted to do it, but for some reason I didn’t want to give anything up to do it.  Good news though, I finally changed my action and attitude toward it last year and did in fact read it.  A lot of people treat faith or God’s judgment that same way, thinking they can deal with it later.

120 years seems like a loooong time, but eventually the time ran out and the flood waters swept across the earth.  Your time, my time, may also be running out and we must first turn to God for the forgiveness of our sins…and then live such as He has commanded us to.   Because there is no bargaining for additional time.  He wants us to put down the newspaper and magazines and to pick up his Word.  He’s urging us to love our neighbor and to care for the poor.  He wants you to forgive your mom, dad, brother or sister.  Whatever it is, he wants us to live for Him right here right now.

Secondly, the Bible says that Noah was “righteous” and “blameless” be he certainly wasn’t perfect…he just wholeheartedly loved and obeyed God.  Like we do, Noah lived in a world filled with evil but he wasn’t influenced by it.  He was in favor with God and He used Noah to save humanity.  I don’t need to save humanity but I do want to obey God.  That’s a big enough call to have.

Noah obeyed God and then when the Lord gave him the assignment to build the ark he immediately got right to work.  Others were warned of the flood but certainly didn’t expect it.  And think, this huge boat was probably built miles and miles from any body of water.  Not only did Noah build this massive ark, he probably didn’t have an ocean nearby to gaze at as a picture to where the boat would be used!  People denied God and ridiculed Noah, but he just kept trusting and kept building.

People that deny God’s judgment will try to get you to deny it as well.  It’s a constant.  It was that way in Noah’s time and it’s that way today.  But we need to remember that God came through on His promise to Noah to keep him safe.  We can also trust God for our deliverance in the judgment that his sure to come.

Genesis 5:1-2 – When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.  He created them male and female and blessed them.  And when they were created, he called them “man.”

This chapter consists of 30 verses of genealogies which isn’t very thrilling.  But I think it’s included in the Bible for a reason so it shouldn’t be completely overlooked.

In the footnotes of my Bible, one of the reasons for having genealogies in the Bible was to confirm the Bible’s promise that the coming Mesiah, Jesus Christ, would be born into the line of Abraham.  I think that’s a great reason to have them.  They also gave a skeletal outline that helped people remember stories and were added to and passed down from family to family.

Genealogies also point to an interesting characteristic of God.  It says that people are important as individuals to him, not just as races or nations.  Think about that for a second.  In this chapter we have (guesstimate) 50 people listed by name along with their life span and descendants.  God’s attention and love is on each person as an individual.

The next time you feel overwhelmed in a vast crowd, remember that the focus of God’s attention and love is on you!  He created you in His likness and He has blessed you and loves you for who you are.