The Patriarchs by Beth Moore

Well it's that time again; time again for another Beth Moore study. I am now studying "The Patriarchs - Encountering the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob". I am only one week into the study and can I just say, it had to have been written for me! So far I have tasted some of the history of the Jewish nation, memorized a geneology, and have discovered Abram was not much different from me. He too had to have God pull him out of the pit he had created, he too tried to compromise with God in order to be more comfortable, he too lied in order to save himself, and he too had to go back to where he had left God, so he could try to do things God's way the second time. WOW!
Let's start from the beginning. When God called Abram to leave his country of Ur, Abram was a worshipper of many gods and "he knew too little of the more to be dissatisfied with the less". Never the less, God revealed His glory to Abram and he was unable to deny that God was the one and only true God. The reason God picked Abram was because "Abram believed God...." (Gal. 3:6-9). God was looking for someone to believe Him and in doing so "to go". Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and his father Terah and left his home land of Ur and headed for Haran. For us Ur might represent a different kind of home land. Ur might represent to us (Usual Routine). How many of us is God calling out of our land of Usual Routine, Hejust might be looking for which of us are willing to believe Him and go. After arriving in Haran Abram and the family decided to settle there. Most likely out of compromise to his father who probably tried to convince Abram not to go overboard following this God of his. It was probably comfortable in Haran too which creates extra inccentive to stay. How often do we stay when God says go because we are nice and comfortable where we are at or try to compromise because of other people who don't have the same call as us? After Abram's father died, Abram decided to take the family and head for Shechem, which was in the land of Canaan, where God had announced He was giving the land to Abram's offspring. But when Abram, Sarai, and Lot got there the land was literally a vaccant desert and in the middle of the worst famine. Has God spoken a word over you or perhaps made you a promise and after following God in obedience you found yourself in the desert? Beth's explanation of this is that God likes to build our faith by allowing us to experience some form of doubt. God wants us to believe Him even when our circumstances and surroundings don't match up. I think God also wanted to show off what He could do instead of things coming easy for Abram under his own strength. God likes to remind us we are safe is His very capable hands. God likes to supernaturally blow our minds. I know, I know, it's good stuff isn't it! I'm so thankful God has spoken His Word so distinctly into Beth.
Okay so there was Abram, Sarai, and Lot in the middle of a desert and famine, so Abram decided to take Sarai and Lot to Egypt instead, where there was plenty of everything to live off of. On the way Abram realized that Sarai's beauty might get him killed, so he asked her to lie and tell everyone in Egypt that she was his sister. Uh Oh! Consider the predicament Abram had just placed his wife in only to save himself. Never the less, Sarai did as he asked and Abram was blessed beyond belief with material possessions for his "sister's" beauty. Until that is, Pharoh found out the truth and then Abram, Sarai, and Lot were kicked out of Egypt for good, which left Abram trucking it back to the desert to the exact spot he had stepped out of God's will. There he built an alter for God, in which I'm sure the alter had to be an alter of repentence. Don't we do the same thing, don't we take a tidbit of God's plan in our lives and then run with it without His instruction? Don't we make decisions based on our own comfort levels, ideas, or even survival plans, only to find ourselves knee deep in trouble and having to truck it back to the last spot God had our obedience? But notice this, that Abram got to keep all his material possessions after being kicked out of Egypt. How often does God turn our mistakes into good? What could have Abram done differently after arriving in the desert the first time? Beth states, "How much better would it have been for Abram to have thrown the responibility back on God and to have said 'Thou hast brough me here; and Thou must now bear the whole weight of providing for me and mine. Here I will stay till I clearly know what Thou wilt have me to do'. Beth states it is better to put God between ourselves and the disasters (famin) that threaten us. Let us cast the whole responsibility upon Him, He will provide! Whewww!
This is only a taste of what I have been learning. What an amazing God I serve, that he would meet me right where I'm at and be able to speak directly to my own circumstances through a bible study written by Beth 10 years ago. Amazing!
I will do my best to keep updating what I have learned. I warn you this study is so meaty that I couldn't possibly cover it all, so I encourage you to study it for yourselves. Stay tuned for more adventures from the our beloved patriarchs.