Let’s read Genesis 11:31-32:
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-lawSarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran (NIV).
Report card time.
When God calls us to do anything for him, we tend to focus on what we will have to give up instead of what we will gain. Usually the call of God seems like a subtraction, but in reality it’s a multiplication. God more than compensates for anything we forfeit for Him.
If you look on a map, Harran is the half way point between Ur and Canaan, the Promised Land. I give him a B- because Abraham left 98% of the people from Ur of the Chaldeans, but he didn’t leave his father’s household. He gets an F. He didn’t make it to Canaan and settled in Harran. Another F.
The Bible says that Terah took Abram. Abram didn’t take Terah. Abraham must have gone to his father and told him the whole story. But that wasn’t part of God’s plan. He was supposed to leave his family.
God expects obedience.
Abraham had no business to go to his father and tell him what God said so that his father could change his mind. Do you know what Terah means: delay. What happens is we take what God has given to us and share it with people who have not had the same revelation, it becomes totally watered down.
Family pressure and human logic has caused the premature death of God’s calling on more Christians than any other scene in the Bible.
It’s not crack cocaine.
It’s not adultery.
It’s family pressure.
It’s human logic.
When they settled in Harran they stayed for fifteen years. Abraham was delayed for fifteen years. Instead of going straight to Canaan they settled half way. I see the symbolism very clearly. Some of us have left our old land for new land. But our new land resembles more of our old land than the land of promise. In other words, we may not be doing what we used to do but we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing.
We are settled somewhere in the middle.
The only difference in Abraham’s life for those fifteen years is that he had a past tense encounter with the living God. Abraham was stuck in a rut. There was no mention of any new contact with God. None of the promises God gave Abraham were ever activated until he left the half way mark.
You might be saying, “God, why aren’t you fulfilling the promises you are giving me?
Because you are not in a position to receive the promises of God!
Now I want to tell you what Harran means: parched. It means a dry place of fruitlessness. And coincidentally, Harran was also the name of Abraham’s brother who died. Delay always gives birth to fruitlessness and fruitlessness always gives birth to carnality. Abraham was in a holding pattern until his father died.
I’m here to tell you it’s time to leave.
It’s time to get out of your comfort zone.
Delays in our life are always wrapped up in sentimental feelings. Do not settle or agree to a less desirable alternative when God has called you to go somewhere else. There are some of you who have that old mentality. God is saying that you need to leave the old behind. He has so much better for you.
In between where you are now and the promise land—there is always a desert. But it’s in the desert where there are springs and water. Unless you leave the half-way point and cross the Euphrates River or that comfort zone, you will never see the supernatural manifested in your life. Amen?
Question: Have you ever experienced the death of God’s calling in your life?
Copyright © 2015 by Maria Durso, All Rights Reserved. Purchase a copy of my new book, From Your Head to Your Heart, on Amazon here.
Leave a Reply