As stated in my last post, if you are interested in getting other sources of our family updates you are welcome to email us. I go into more details on our moves and other specifics. I know it seems like I keep posting about moving...well, it's because we have now lived in 6 different homes since January of 2009. In that regard, it has been a crazy journey so far! Recently, in my daily "read through the Bible" assignment, I came again to Genesis chapter 12. This chapter is, of course, special to our family because 12:1 is the promised verse that the Father gave to us when He called us to this adventure. Over the course of our early years of marriage the Father gave us several 12:1 verses from scripture that allowed us direction and encouragement. (At the beginning of
our 12th year of marriage He finally sent us overseas....crazy right! God's timing is amazing.) I love how He speaks to us through His Word. As I was reading the Genesis passages again, I was struck by something new. In 12:6-9 it talks about how on Abraham's journey to find the place the Lord wanted him to settle he actually, "passed though" the land, "proceeded from their" and then "journeyed on". Well, that seems like a strange way to "arrive" at a destination. I love our new TomTom GPS. You type in where you want to go; you follow the directions; then in short time you hear the
words, "you have arrived at your destination." If you do not follow the directions specifically, you hear, "when possible make a U-turn". In the Genesis account, the Lord tells Abraham, "this is going to be your land"; so Abraham builds an altar. I'm guessing that at that time, even though it is not recorded, that the Lord says something like, "there is a famine and the Canaanites are powerful right now, so you can't stay in the land I have promised". Abraham has to then go into Egypt. In the next few verses, the Bible only records the part of Abraham being fearful and lying about Sarah being his sister, but later in chapter 13 we see a comparison of the promised land to Egypt. God had reasons for Abraham traveling to Egypt...not just to
escape the famine. God did not say, "Do a U-turn when possible"; nor does the Bible record God saying, "in 200 meters you will need to do a right turn"; "you have 5 minutes until you reach your destination." TomTom is always so good about that! AND YET our God is even better to us than TomTom. God could have kept Abraham in Ur...waited a few more years to call him if he wanted to simply take him directly to the new land, but we see Abraham moving around quite a bit in the process of settling into his "new land". In this moving and journeying process God was teaching Abraham to trust and depend on Him.
SOOOO, I guess you might see where I am going with this. I am VERRRRRYYY hesitant to suggest that we have "arrived" at the "land" the Lord has promised us, because that has not been revealed to us; however, we can look back on the adventure thus far and see why the Lord had us journey through different cities. We are learning step-by-step to trust and to depend on Him. Our prayer is that we are allowed to now put down a few roots and see the multiplication of our family and the family of God, but we know that HIS ways are perfect so we are simply remaining faithful to the call. AT
As stated in my last post, if you are interested in getting other sources of our family updates you are welcome to email us. I go into more details on our moves and other specifics. I know it seems like I keep posting about moving...well, it's because we have now lived in 6 different homes since January of 2009. In that regard, it has been a crazy journey so far! Recently, in my daily "read through the Bible" assignment, I came again to Genesis chapter 12. This chapter is, of course, special to our family because 12:1 is the promised verse that the Father gave to us when He called us to this adventure. Over the course of our early years of marriage the Father gave us several 12:1 verses from scripture that allowed us direction and encouragement. (At the beginning of 
our 12th year of marriage He finally sent us overseas....crazy right! God's timing is amazing.) I love how He speaks to us through His Word. As I was reading the Genesis passages again, I was struck by something new. In 12:6-9 it talks about how on Abraham's journey to find the place the Lord wanted him to settle he actually, "passed though" the land, "proceeded from their" and then "journeyed on". Well, that seems like a strange way to "arrive" at a destination. I love our new TomTom GPS. You type in where you want to go; you follow the directions; then in short time you hear the 
words, "you have arrived at your destination." If you do not follow the directions specifically, you hear, "when possible make a U-turn". In the Genesis account, the Lord tells Abraham, "this is going to be your land"; so Abraham builds an altar. I'm guessing that at that time, even though it is not recorded, that the Lord says something like, "there is a famine and the Canaanites are powerful right now, so you can't stay in the land I have promised". Abraham has to then go into Egypt. In the next few verses, the Bible only records the part of Abraham being fearful and lying about Sarah being his sister, but later in chapter 13 we see a comparison of the promised land to Egypt. God had reasons for Abraham traveling to Egypt...not just to 
escape the famine. God did not say, "Do a U-turn when possible"; nor does the Bible record God saying, "in 200 meters you will need to do a right turn"; "you have 5 minutes until you reach your destination." TomTom is always so good about that! AND YET our God is even better to us than TomTom. God could have kept Abraham in Ur...waited a few more years to call him if he wanted to simply take him directly to the new land, but we see Abraham moving around quite a bit in the process of settling into his "new land". In this moving and journeying process God was teaching Abraham to trust and depend on Him. 
SOOOO, I guess you might see where I am going with this. I am VERRRRRYYY hesitant to suggest that we have "arrived" at the "land" the Lord has promised us, because that has not been revealed to us; however, we can look back on the adventure thus far and see why the Lord had us journey through different cities. We are learning step-by-step to trust and to depend on Him. Our prayer is that we are allowed to now put down a few roots and see the multiplication of our family and the family of God, but we know that HIS ways are perfect so we are simply remaining faithful to the call. AT 
