Why God Chose Abraham ~ And Why Child Training is so Important For You

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I've been reading about Abraham since the new year began and have come to understand him differently than before, but more importantly "why" God chose Abraham to be the "father of faith" as he is commonly referred.

If you know of Abraham you probably have heard alot about the following (Genesis12:2-3)

• God told him he would make him a "great nation"
• He would make his name "great"
• That he would be a blessing
• How all the families of the earth would be blessed in him
• And in later verses, God promises him the land of Canaan to him and his descendants,
• and how God gave him righteous standing with him due to Abraham's faith

Essentially God told him what to do and what God would do with him and with his life.

On this round of reading about Abraham I've parked on a later verse that indicates why God chose Abraham.  Genesis 18:19 says;

              "For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him."

or in the Message translation;

            "Abraham is going to become a large and strong nation; all the nations of the world are going to find themselves blessed through him. Yes, I've settled on him as the one to train his children and future family to observe God's way of life, live kindly and generously and fairly, so that God can complete in Abraham what he promised him."
 
So this is my take on why God chose Abraham to introduce Himself to and make him the father of the Jewish and Christian faith's.

• Despite the fact that Abraham only had one child by his wife Sarah (and maybe because of it), Abraham became a generational-thinker
• The very reason he was chosen was because God knew that Abraham would transmit who God was and what God wanted to his children and people with him.
• Abraham was a trainer; he had the motivation (which likely lead to an increasing ability) to teach, instruct and coach his family  
• God spoke all these promises (nation, land, etc.) to Abraham before he even had any children.  Since he and Sarah lived many years childless, they likely developed a strong desire for children and learned to never treat their fertility casually.

One of the most striking phrases of the prior verse was the last one, "...that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him."  Or, "...so that God can complete in Abraham what he promised him."   So in my understanding, Abraham's destiny of becoming a nation, inheriting a land, becoming and receiving all that God had promised him, would be manifested by the proper training of his family to live righteously and follow after God.  

Or in equation format;  family training = God's promises

For my own benefit I wrote words that help me understand this topic better, here they are; teaching, training, instructing, sharing, coaching, commanding, directing, discipling, igniting, revealing, deciphering, uncovering, discovering, sparking, demonstrating, pastoring, showing, sheparding, mentoring, modeling...got any more?

Risk, Chaos, Mess...the stuff of real life!

Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest. Proverbs 14:4

People make a mess. Children make a mess. Houses with people and a lot of children make big messes. You can't have children around and have things clean, in order and in good repair for very long. While the words "disorder" or "mess" seem undesireable, within anything of beauty there remains an element of chaos (think nature). I'm learning (with difficulty) that when I look at a dirty kitchen or a messy garage, I'm looking at lives being lived, in all it's chaos with people I love.

I help run a lot of businesses that are highly dependent on people. If I couldn't accept a lot of ambiguity and chaos at times, I would soon be crushed by the weight of it all. Despite best efforts to train, manage and create systems, things just do not run the way you want them to a lot of the time. People aren't robots and they don't run computer programs in their brains, they are innately unpredictable, make mistakes or judge wrong. Equipment breaks, machines need service, the second law of thermodynamics is always at play, things are running down.

The same goes for families, home and relationships they are by nature chaotic. Unless we allow for unpredictability, disorder, chaos and mess in our lives our perfectionist tendencies create lids over us that ultimately create limitations. It's classic in business. A guy starts a business and while it's small and controllable his life is good, but as soon as it starts to grow he hits a wall, he can't handle the chaos it creates around him. Sometimes this is created by him because he hasn't grown his skills with the enterprise, often however it's simply the fact that the more people he involves in it the more complicated (risky, chaotic, messy) that business becomes....and that can be scary.

The above scripture gives a great word picture that while oxen make a smelly, stinky mess, without the animal the farmer has no strength to till his fields, provide for his family, build wealth; this large messy creature adds value to him, actually an accelerator towards his goal. If the farmer couldn't handle the mess of the oxen, it's care and feeding, it's smelly refuse, he'd be tilling his own fields himself suffering with a fraction of the output and productivity of other farmers with oxen. Without our children (read biological and spiritual), we create little generational value in the world, we don't grow as deeply as people. Without children there is little inner vision to live nobly, generational or holy. Without children, there is little down-payment on the future. Without children and the unpredictability, chaos and mess they create, you don't become who God intended. To enjoy a life that creates value (I'm not talking money and assets), we should embrace the messy stuff of life - children, people and relationships that over the long haul reap us a harvest of an abundant and value-adding life.

Phil Vassar get's it. Life with the people you love is messy, but still beautiful all the same. Enjoy the truth of his song.