By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 

Faith goes.

If God shows the way, faith is willing to go.

He was probably in his mid-70’s when he went out from his own country. Sarah, his wife, was also elderly. We are never too old to be used in God’s purposes, if we are willing to step out with Him.

Martin Luther wrote:

‘In the first place, it was hard for him to leave his native land, which it is natural for us to love…Furthermore, it is hard to leave friends and their companionship, but most of all to leave relatives and one’s father’s house.’

It is probably hardest of all to leave behind the secure known in advanced years, when every instinct fights to stay with the known and with perceived comfort and safety. But what Abraham and Sarah would have missed if they had remained in their own land! What we would have missed!! So much hung on their going.

Calvin comments on Abraham’s obedience that the patriarch ‘did nothing that was not by the command of God. This is surely one of the principles of faith that we do not move a step unless the Word of God shows the way and shines before us like a lantern.’

It is important to point out that, for all these heroes of faith, although they had great adventures with God in this world, they were strengthened, encouraged and motivated by the hope of the next.


C.S. Lewis observed, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.