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Terah, the father of Abraham, gathered up all his family and possessions and set out to go from Chaldea to Canaan, but he never got there. When he reached Haran, about halfway, things there looked good to him, so there he stopped and there he settled.

It was later, after the old man died, that God spoke to his son Abraham, calling the son to complete what the father had failed to finish. However, when the Lord spoke to Abraham about going, he did not mention Canaan by name at all; he simply said, "Go ... go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1).

The Lord did not provide Abraham with a AAA triptik before he started. He simply said: Go and I will show you the way; you start out and trust me to guide you to where I want you to be. And Abraham did as God said. He started, and by starting he was saying: Okay, Lord, I trust you; you take over now; I'm your man.

The New Testament book of Hebrews (11:8) tells us that, while he had no road map, Abraham had something even better. He had faith, and that by this faith he traveled. The New Testament word is this: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called ... and he set out, not knowing where he was going."

If we may think of our human life as a journey across the years, it seems to me that we have here an amazing parallel in the experience of this remarkable man. If we may consider especially one important aspect of our lifetime pilgrimage, then this parallel becomes very impressive indeed.

So let us consider this parallel: namely, that which happens as we go from wherever we are in life to wherever God wants us to be. And this, of course, is by far the most critical aspect of our lifetime journey.

Now, please do understand that I do not speak here of geography; this is not about moving from one geographical location to another; this is not a "going" of the moving-van variety, in which we load up our household stuff and head out Route 66 or 81 or whatever.

I speak here about stages and conditions of individual human life, nor do I mean by this our social standing or economic status. I mean, rather, the inner world of spirit and mind and soul, the inner world of what we really are.

It is in this area that our most important moves are ever made. Changes and directions taken here are the really critical ones. Whether we move to Halifax or Timbuktu is not nearly as important as whether we move into a right relationship with God and with life itself.

Now, let's look at the story of Abraham's journey to Canaan, and to do this, let's break it down into six parts: He listened, he started, he took with him everything he had, he didn't know where was going, but he did know with whom, and he journeyed on.

First, he listened; he heard God speak to him. I suppose this all happened deep within his soul, this being the usual manner of God's communication with his people.

It's wonderful, isn't it, that when God spoke, Abraham's inward ear was tuned to listen. How many times God must try to communicate with us, only to find out that we are just not tuned in. There is so much chaos around and within that inward quiet is often difficult to achieve.

I suppose that in our time the world's principal product is talk. In this electronic age, the average person will probably hear in a month or less as many words as our great-grandparents heard in a year or more. Many of the voices we hear are bought and paid for by someone who wants to convince us of something, and these voices make a problem for us: To whom shall we listen?

They all seem so sincere. Sincerity, however, may be counterfeited, and often is, no doubt. So we must exercise discretion, build around us some protective walls of resistance. We hear so much that is meaningless, or even destructive, that we tend to become a bit cynical about the whole talk enterprise.

Nearly 2000 years ago, the apostle Paul made this observation: "There are ... so many different kinds of voices in the world" (1 Corinthians 14:10 KJV), and this having been true in Paul's day, it is even more so now. To provide some safeguards for ourselves, we find it necessary to practice selective listening; we must, unless we would have our minds become streetside trash cans. Even being as selective as possible, it is still terribly difficult at times to know when to resist and when to be receptive.

Despite all the bedlam, though, we may be certain that God yet speaks. How, in what language, one may ask. The question is best answered, I think, in Hebrews 1:1: "Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways ... but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son...."

Would you prepare yourself in the best possible way to hear God speak to you? I think there is no better way than to breathe in deeply of the spirit of the Christ.

In Christ, God clothed his word in flesh, and spoke in the language of a living person. After all, cannot love be better expressed in person than any other way? He who had once spoken to Elijah in a "still, small voice" or "a sound of silence" at last spoke from his heaven with a great shout. And if we may once hear that great shout, we are thenceforward better prepared day by day to hear God's voice whispered within.

In the story of Jesus' transfiguration, we read of an important word that his disciples heard on the mount that day. This is the way the story reads: "A cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, 'This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!' " (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7). Oh, that we might do this, all of us, everywhere, and always!

Well, Abraham listened to the voice that came to him, and, listening, obeyed. The voice said, "Go," and "he set forth to go" (Genesis 12:5). I like that: He set forth to go. In other words, he started.

And sometimes starting is hard to do; it involves decision, and decisions are sometimes hard to make. We have no problem if we are on vacation and are going to the beach for a day. But we may have a problem if the journey ahead is known to be difficult or if we are moving from the vary familiar into the unknown.

Abraham was called upon to do just this; he would leave his kindred and his homeland, not even knowing where he was to go. He might have doubted, delayed, and found excuses for his hesitation, but he didn't.

He might have said: Come spring maybe, for the weather will be better then. Or: Next year perhaps, after the crops are gathered and food supplies are more plentiful. Or: Everything must be perfectly in order for this venture, and a few matters need attention yet. Or: The risks are just too great. But he said none of this.

Rather, as soon as he got the word from the Lord, I think he called his family and servants together and said: "We're going!" They probably asked where, and he undoubtedly replied: I don't know. At this point, they may have said: Are you crazy? And he may have answered, calmly, I think: No, I don't think I'm crazy; but the Lord is calling, and we must go, and it will be all right; he will lead.

Then, I imagine Abraham began issuing travel orders: Get the camels and donkeys ready; see that everything is in good repair; fill all the waterskins; carefully select and pack the food; strike the tents and fold them. As soon as all was done, he checked everything carefully, waved good-bye to his neighbors, and said firmly: Let's go!

The man had heard God's call, and he was answering. It was decision time, commitment time, time to act -- and act he did. But act some people don't.

During the Civil War in America, President Lincoln placed General George B. McClellan in command of Union forces. But McClellan invariably had some excuse for not moving; as he saw it, things were never quite ready, and Lincoln was at last compelled to remove him. A good many of us, I suspect, suffer from McClellan's malady; the law of inertia holds us firmly in its grasp, and we can't muster the courage to break loose and become an Abraham.

Wherever we may be going, it all depends on our starting. As you will recall, in order for Joshua's people to get into the Promised Land, they had to cross the Jordan, and that river was at flood stage. And you will recall that when the feet of the priests who carried the ark of God touched the water, it rolled back to let the people pass. When they walked in as though it would, it did. And I venture that it wouldn't have, had those people sat immobile on the hills of Moab watching the river flow by.

No river will ever let you cross it until you attempt the crossing. If we are going anywhere at all, the time comes when we have to break camp and start moving; and when we do, we may be in for a surprise, and especially so if, like Abraham, we go by faith.

Now notice please: When Abraham "set forth to go" he took everything he had; he left nothing behind. And what is the meaning of this? Simply that he was committed and he knew it. He was going to wherever God wanted him to be, and there he would remain; he would never go back to what had been before.

What a powerful message to any of us who would embrace Christ and start out to walk with him. We would travel on a one-way passage, with no option of return.

A good while after Abraham, Moses was trying to get the Israelites out of Egypt. At one point in the proceedings, he asked permission of the Egyptian king to lead the people into the wilderness so they might worship there. Without doubt, the king knew that if they ever got that far away, they would never come back; so he said, "Go ... Only your flocks and your herds shall remain behind." Responding with firm resolve, Moses retorted: "Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind"Ê(Exodus 10:24-26).

Here is a thing of great importance that Jesus once said: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:21). This means, doesn't it, that when we start out to go with Christ in the venture of Christian living, we must be sure to take our treasure with us, all of it. If we leave any of it behind, the temptation will be irresistibly strong to go back sometime and reclaim it. Or, more correctly said perhaps: go back and stay with it.

Now, on to the fourth interesting aspect of Abraham's journey: He did not know where he was going. This meant, of course, that in relation to his final destination, he never quite knew where he was.

As a matter of fact, my friend, do we know where we are? Where we are in relation to what? Where we are in relation to any specific in the future? For instance, how near are we to death? We don't know, do we? Like Abraham on his journey, you and I do not know where we are on ours.

We know something of the road by which we came, but nothing of the road we take from here. To visualize this point at which we are, think of driving among the mountains, the Appalachians for instance. You have reached the top of one, and from here you look back over the road by which you came. There it lies beneath the morning sun, a winding ribbon clearly seen in the morning light; and with some measure of delight, you say: I came this way.

Then you turn and look in the other direction, and the fog is there, deep and dense and dark. You see the road descend into it and disappear; but down this road you must go. With a last glance toward the road by which you came, you restart your engine, and turn on your headlights, and go down into that mist. You have never been on this road before, and you don't know where you are, but you try hard to trust that around the next curve the road goes on.

During World War II, an American army tank had penetrated far into enemy territory. The battalion commander radioed the tank's chief officer, asking his location. The officer replied, "We do not know our location, sir; we are beyond the edge of our map."

In ongoing life, this is where we all are -- beyond the edge of our map. However, if we are going with the Lord, although we do not know where we are, we do know with whom we travel, and we can trust him to see us through.

Always of extreme importance to us, in whatever journey we make, is what guide we follow. Blind guides (Matthew 23:16), misinformed guides, deceitful guides, can lead us into real trouble.

There is the amusing story of a man in Montana who hired a guide to take him somewhere. After days of wandering, the guide confessed he was lost. In exasperation, his client said, "But, fellow, you claimed to be the best guide in Montana."ÊTo which the guide replied, "I am, but I think we're in Canada now!"

The biblical record leaves no question about it: Abraham traveled by faith; he took his direction from the Lord; he listened and followed. So what is the role of faith in this human pilgrimage?

Well, if we mean for our life to go on victoriously and joyously, the role of faith is absolutely an essential one. Faith is never, of course, the answer to all the questions of the universe, providing the final answer and thus eliminating the question. Neither is faith the solution to all mysteries, so that nothing is mysterious anymore.

Faith is, rather, a way of making questions and mysteries tolerable, intelligible, and even helpful. In an elementary school arithmetic book, answers to all the problems may sometimes be found in the back. But the book of life is not supplied with prepared answers to which we may turn at will. We must live it page by page and wait; we cannot turn to the back of the book and read the answers now.

So what is it that faith does? It lets us know that if we add two and two correctly we will get the right answer. It lets us know that if we work through the problems by the rules, we need not worry about what the answer pages will say. And also, of course, it is faith that lets us know that if we don't put it together correctly, we will be judged by what we find when we turn the final page.

In other words, faith arranges things so we don't have to know all the answers now; the end is not yet. All we need to know is the way, and we can trust for the ending. For example, if we can hear Jesus say, "I am the way"Ê(John 14:6), and take him who is the way, and know that he has overcome, then we can trust for the outcome.

This truth has prompted someone to write: "So I go on not knowing;/ I would not if I might;/ I would rather walk in the dark with God/ Than to walk alone in the light."

It was in this faith that Abraham journeyed, and in this faith so can we. Christ, the way, the truth, the life, says: Come, fall in and walk with me. This is his invitation to us. And please know this: Neither you nor I can ever answer any call to some distant Canaan unless sometime we make up our minds to start.

The time comes when we must proclaim freedom from all that holds us back, break loose, and "set forth to go."

A mighty, majestic, and proud Rocky Mountain eagle was captured and tethered to a stake, and was there for many weeks. From time to time, for a while, he attempted to fly, but was prevented by the shackles that held him.

At last, the man who kept the bird prisoner decided to set him free. So he removed the tether, and left the bird standing there forlornly by the tether stake, and there for three days and three nights the poor creature stood.

I am sure the call of the mountain and the upward pull of the sky were powerfully upon him. But there he stood, having been shackled so long that he could not now understand that he was free to fly. But at length he did, soaring away to the mountain that was his proper home.

Reading this story, I thought: If I were a Rocky Mountain eagle, with all the prowess of that heroic bird, no matter what I was tethered to, I would at least try my wings. About this time, God began to talk with me, and I think something like this is what God said: Fellow, as a human, you are far more than any eagle can ever be; try the wings you've got.