Worship the Lord Again

It’s easy to forget they were just human.

Pretty much just like you and me.

Over the years of stories and sermons on their lives, we have unfortunately elevated them to a level that can render them unreachable to us. We could never imagine them having the same kinds of struggles, doubts or fears we battle every day.

But I think the reason the Apostle Paul tells us that the stories of the Old Testament are given to us as an example, is precisely because these people were exactly like us. Their emotions, fears, disappointments, even their failures, were all recorded, unvarnished, by the Holy Spirit so that we could identify with them and even join them in those moments they cast themselves wholly on God.

I just stumbled on to one of those moments in my morning reading.

Abram had messed up big time.

During a famine in Canaan, he had decided, all on his own, to go to Egypt. Even though God has been his Source and Supply for years, Abram never so much as enquired regarding God’s will, nor did he seek God’s direction about the situation. He just up and moved the family to Egypt.

But it gets worse!

When Abram got to Egypt, he allowed fear for his life to drive him into his second bad decision. He lied about his relationship with Sarai and Pharaoh took her into his harem.

The problem here, and it is huge in my opinion, is that if Pharaoh lies with Sarai, God’s vehicle for the fulfillment of His covenant with Abram (Genesis 12:1-9) is totally compromised.

That is serious!

God had to send a “terrible plague” on Pharaoh’s house to turn around the mess Abram had made of his life and calling. Abram and his household are summarily thrown out of the country, head back home through the arid Negev in total disgrace.

That’s a lot of hot dusty miles through the desert to consider the mess he’d made of things.

I just know, because I’ve been there, how down and discouraged he had to have been, as he headed back to the last place he’d met with God…Bethel.

Now that was the first smart decision he’d made for a long time

It’s an option open to every one of us who have made stupid decisions, like Abram, and done some dumb things.

Go back to the place you last met with God.

When they got there, Genesis 13:4 says, “This was the same place where Abram had built the altar, and there he worshiped the Lord again.”

I can feel the release of God’s presence right now, sitting here in my study, just reading that verse. Abram worshipped the Lord again.

He had to have felt the release of forgiveness right there in the place of worship. Bad decisions washed away in waves of God’s love and mercy. Guilt removed. Shame gone. Hope restored as Abram worshipped his sorry soul back under the caress of the only One, who heals and restores with just one touch of His presence.