In this world, Christians may often face earthly uncertainty. Who but God knows what tomorrow may bring? But our hope is secure because it is bound up in Christ, and we are secure in Him. Thus, we cherish the thought embodied in the hymn “A Debtor to Mercy Alone”: Yes, I to the end shall endure, as sure as the earnest is giv’n; more happy, but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heav’n. Because we are in Christ, in heaven we may be more happy than we are right now, but we will not be any more secure. We are in Christ, and we cannot be more secure than that.
The lives of Christians are filled with all kinds of blessings. Some of those blessings are unique and extraordinary—particularly our salvation. Ordinary blessings come to us as well, and many of them are easily taken for granted. In fact, some of them come to us so routinely that we mistakenly assume that they will always be there. Things such as home, health, food, and clothing are always there, at least for many of us. Greater blessings such as family and solid relationships can also easily be taken for granted. As the old saying goes and is too often true, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”
Stability in the smaller matters of life is a blessing that God bestows on many of His people. And though some of God’s people enjoy the blessings of stability more than others, God does not promise that these things will always be there, at least not in the way that we have known them. Even the smallest things in life are gifts from God’s hand. Learning to be content with little—even to rejoice in it—is one of the true marks of Christian maturity. It is also a signal to the world around us that we are exactly what the Bible calls us—a pilgrim people who are called to live by faith in an uncertain world.
Few stories illustrate this point better than the pilgrimage of Abraham. In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham (then called Abram) in a rather abrupt way: God’s first word to Abram is not “Hi there” or “How’s it going?” but rather “Go.” The first thing that God says to Abram is a direct command—a command to go. Few commentaries (including the book of Hebrews) overlook the fact that God effectively told Abram to go before He told him where to go. It’s as if God said, “Get up, start walking, and I will tell you where we are going along the way.” What God called Abram to was clear: He wanted Abram to walk by faith and not by sight. But where God was calling him to go was equally unclear.
Such is the nature of the life of faith. God often calls us, moves us, destabilizes us, if you will—never to injure or perplex us but always to refine us for His glory and our good. This was true for Abraham, and it is true for all the sons and daughters of Abraham who follow after him by faith.
Abraham’s willingness to follow God is even more greatly appreciated if we think about not just the life that was before him but the life that was behind him as well. Abraham may have had no idea where he was going at the beginning of Genesis 12, but he certainly knew where he was from. Abraham had enjoyed a life of stability in Ur. He had a people and place. He belonged somewhere. There were people who knew him and people whom he knew. There were trees and buildings with which he was familiar, and there were people who knew his story because they were part of it. Abraham surely had some measure of relational depth and community in the land that God called him to leave. In short, Abraham had stability.
God, however, had a different plan for Abraham. Rather than settle down into a life of comfort and ease, Abraham would prove to be the prototypical pilgrim.