Mark spoke about the life of Terah at tonight’s meeting. Terah (Abraham’s father) is only mentioned in a few verses in Genesis and in one verse in Joshua and might seem quite an insignificant character compared to others in the Old Testament, but his life teaches us nonetheless a valuable spiritual lesson.
Gen 10 tells us the story of the flood and how God saved Noah and his family from destruction. By Gen 11, we see that things have once again deteriorated and one of Noah’s sons, Shem, lived in Ur of the Chaldeans which became a place of idol worship. From his line came Terah; in Gen 11:26-32, we read how Terah fathered Abraham and was called by God, even though he lived in inauspicious conditions! (see also Joshua 24:2) This demonstrates how God can use and call anyone and can transform and use anyone at all, including us!
Terah set off on a journey – an idol-worshipping man leaving his home with all his family to set off for a new life in Canaan. He travelled as far as Haran (probably about 950 miles, an epic journey in itself.) Haran was a welcome place of civilisation and being about halfway to Canaan was a good resting0place, but Terah decided to stay there and live and forgot about Canaan. He stopped, in esesence, halfway to the fulfilment of his dreams.
Gen 11:32 gives us this sobering truth: ‘Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.’ He stayed there; he settled there and he died there, never having known the blessings of actually reaching Canaan, his original destination. Where he settled was where he died.
Lessons from Terah’s Life
- God can choose and use the most unexpected people to fulfil His plan. Terah was chosen to father Abraham, the start of the line of Israel, and was called to set off on a journey with God. God chooses us to be part of His plans.
- God gives us destinations and dreams to achieve for Him, things that excite us and move us. What happens to those destinations and dreams, however? Do we give up on them? Do the rigours of the journey and life cause us to pause for a while and then we settle down… having only reached halfway? We may still be doing stuff for God, but we are not possessing all that God has for us and can be guilty of settling for second best. ‘Second best’ may well seem good and not evil, but it’s not Canaan! – it’s not the dream and vision God gave you.
- Terah stopped half-way and settled and died. Are we going to stop half way to God’s ultimate plan for our lives because we have reached a place and time that’s comfortable and nice? The devil seeks to rob us of becoming the awesome person God wants us to be. We need to keep pressing on (see Phil 3:12-14). We weren’t called for mediocre service or to be mediocre Christians; we were called to do something that only we can do with God. There is no middle ground: we are either pressing on or settling spiritually in a place where we will die. The call is to return to our first love and vision and to keep on pressing on.