Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. -- Genesis 13:11

As Lot learned through much suffering and loss, the path that looks easy in the beginning does not always end so pleasantly.  Sometimes, too, there are separations that need to take place.  The man who would become Abraham had been called to leave behind his land, his people and even his family to follow God and found a new nation.  Loyalty and love had caused him to keep his nephew, Lot, with him as he sojourned in Canaan.  We read how both Lot and Abram prospered and how the increase of their herds caused conflict that led to separation.

Before jumping too far ahead and saying, “Abraham good; Lot bad”, I note that both men had their weaknesses.  Abraham could be controlled by fear and be less than forthright in his dealings.  Meanwhile Peter’s Second Epistle calls Lot “righteous” and speaks of the torment of his “righteous soul” as he dwelt among the lawless in Sodom (2 Peter 2:7-8).  I’m reminded, also, of the conflict between Barnabas and Paul that caused their parting (Acts 15:36-41).  When the Lord divides us from a friend, associate, or family member, it isn’t always because one of us is pulling the other down or because one is right and the other wrong.  It may be part of a greater plan that He has, the ends of which are beyond our powers of speculation and discernment. 

I think about that a lot these days.  You may have seen that map of the United States where it is divided regionally into, I think, eleven different cultures like the Deep South and Greater Appalachia.  Whether there is much to that or not, we seem to be hearing more talk of secession and of unsustainability of the current national model.  We are seeing greater disagreement between the secular and the sacred, between Muslim and Christian, black and white, left and right, often with violence and bloodshed.  Jesus does say (Matthew 10:34-39) that He has come to divide, to sift and to separate, the believing from the unbelieving, the righteous from the wicked, the wheat from the tares, and the sheep from the goats.

We lament these divisions, conflicts and losses, in part because we do not see the destiny to which they move us, but also because of our natural human affection for one another, for the American dream, for a simpler time, or whatever it is we feel is slipping away.  Abraham never stopped caring about Lot.  He rescued him from the king of Elam (Genesis 14), and he interceded for Lot and his family when God was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Death, disagreement, or distance, partings of the ways are unavoidable.  Trust God.  Continue to love the departed and pray for an unbroken circle.

The Wisdom of Living Right

For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. -- Genesis 18:19

Genesis chapter 18 involves a theophany.  A trio of men appears near Abraham’s camp.  It is not clear initially if Abraham realizes they are from God, or if he is simply a man eager to show hospitality.  He begs them to allow him to prepare them some food.  They accept and reveal that part of their purpose is to deliver the message that a son will be born to Abraham and Sarah within the year. 

Two angels then proceed on to assess the situation in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah while the Angel of the Lord remains and ponders talking things over with Abraham.  It is almost as though the Lord seeks a human perspective on the wickedness of the cities of the Plain.  He has heard that there is much going on there which is exceedingly evil and deserving of judgment:  Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”  (Genesis 18:20-21)

I don’t pretend to understand exactly how all this works, but it seems to me that prayer is a very important spiritual process.  On the one hand, I think God knows everything and is involved in everything.  Yet He seems sometimes to wait for man’s call.  Somebody must have been troubled by what was going on in Sodom.  Maybe it was Lot:  … he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard) -- 2 Peter 2:7-8.  Despite the fact that Lot remained in Sodom and had some weaknesses, he was, apparently, a decent sort of man in a very ugly place. 

People say that if God spares such-and-such, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.  It could be that no one in San Francisco or Chicago or Washington, D.C. is yet distressed enough to pray for a righting of wrongs.  It could also be that there are still enough righteous people, enough salt to preserve the wicked from destruction.  That was the argument that Abraham presented when God told him about the impending judgment.  The Lord agreed that destroying the righteous with the wicked would not be just.  He would have spared those two cities for the sake of ten good people.  He found, giving everybody the benefit of the doubt, four. 

Again, that’s all the rest of the chapter.  The point I got from verse 19 is something else.  In order for Abraham to receive what God had promised him, he had to give the proper guidance to his family.  Despite the grace and mercy of God, His intentions toward Abraham, and His divine purposes in choosing him, immorality can still wreck people’s lives.  Ignorance and indifference to God’s laws have the potential to derail intended blessings. 

The Lord had chosen one man and his line as a way of bringing salvation and redemption to the world.  He needed Abraham to establish some guidelines for his son and grandsons, great-grandsons and so on.  They needed to know how to look toward God in faith and order their lives to, in general, align with the truth. 

It is good that God loves us, that He is gracious and forgiving and that He has provided Christ as our Reconciliation.  But we cannot live contrary to spiritual truth any more than we can defy the laws of physics in the material world.  A few weeks back, I stepped on a patch of ice on my driveway while walking blithely along in slick-soled boots with my hands in my pockets.  I hit the concrete flat and hard, so hard, in fact that my sunglasses were thrown high into the air by the impact.  Gravity doesn’t care.  The laws of motion do not care.  I split the skin on the back of my head and raised a knot the size of a baseball.  I think I even had a bit of whiplash.  Fortunately, the concrete was undamaged, but it was a close thing.

If we are going to have God’s blessing in our lives, we need to do our best to live by and in harmony with His moral and spiritual laws.  Bouncing my thick head off a hard surface is painful, but not nearly as damaging as what happens when a child of God gets completely off course and shatters his or her life on the rocks and reefs of sin.  We don’t have to be perfect; we just have to keep in mind where we are going and what is important.