Just sit right back and I’ll tell the tale…of two slightly different men.  

(Anybody else still singing Gilligan’s Island?)

In keeping with the amazing, incomprehensible continuity and usefulness of God’s Word, I have a little story for you from a genealogy in early Genesis.  II Timothy 3:16-17, it is indeed ALL useful!

It all hinges on two tiny words, they make an eternity of difference:

Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, and together they set out from Ur to go to Canaan.  But when they came to Haran, they settled there.     Genesis 11:31

Now’s a good time to check your maps, the ones you rarely notice in the back of every Bible.  Check the first one.  Only one name from the above verse is listed on that map, but two men began that journey.  

Ok, I’ll show you.

Ur was a beautiful place, very near where the Garden of Eden had been (Genesis 2:14).  Terah and select members of his family left this paradise headed for…where?  The verse tells us.  They were headed for Canaan, somewhere they had never been, nor had anyone else they likely knew.  They were willing to move, they were willing to leave behind some lovely things, they were willing to do something their ancestors had refused to do despite God’s commands to do so (Genesis 9:1).  They put forth some effort.  Good enough?  

This isn’t a story about good versus evil, about sin versus water walking.  This is a story about two men who had to choose between good, better, and best.  This is the story of us.  

Terah chose the good, he chose to pick up and leave, but at some point he looked around and decided that where he was looked quite nice and where he was headed was daunting and unknown.  Good seemed quite good enough, and best was just plain frightening.  Notice the map, what lies between Haran and Canaan?  It was such a mighty river that in Genesis it is often simply referred to as the River.  Various maps chart their course differently, some have them crossing the River a time or two before arriving in Haran some never have them crossing it at all.  The story is still the same, the excuse is still flimsy.  “I’ve crossed that River before, I have no interest in going there again!”  “I’ve never crossed anything so frightening and cumbersome, I can’t possibly wade into there!” 

The gods were the same in Haran as in Ur, the moon god.  His lesser gods in one hand and the One True God in the other, he walked into newness with them both.  But when the time came to leave the moon god behind and walk with God alone, Terah figured he’d gone quite far enough (Joshua 24:2-3 lest you feel I’m being too harsh on the old guy).

Don’t forget that Terah was no young man.  He was old and tired and Haran was so nice and inviting.  Who would want to leave the fertile metropolis for an unknown world of mystery and fears?

Someone to whom God had promised greatness on the other side.

In the life of the one who gets to walk among God’s promises, there has to be a point where you lay down your lesser gods, where you refuse to settle for half measures and halfway efforts, where you dare to go where you–or possibly anyone–has been before, because you believe God when He says there’s something better on the other side.  

Could we live a ‘decent’ life in Haran?  Maybe, maybe not.

Could we live in the fullness of God’s promises in Haran?  Not a chance.

What’s in your River?  Of what does your Promised Land consist?

Name your fears, refuse to settle, dwell instead on promises, hike up your pant legs and step into the waters!

God has offered us the best, BUT we so often settle for plain old good on the safe side.

We are told that Terah died at 205.  That’s when his body died, but I believe that process started far sooner.  

Wake up, oh sleeper!  Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!  Ephesians 5:14

Like so many today, Terah turned into the walking dead.  A little piece of us dies every time we say no to the lives we have been called to live, the adventures we were made to endeavor.  Terah may have died the day he arrived in Haran.  He may have looked out over the thriving city to the north and the raging River to the south and let all his future die at that moment when settling looked better and the River looked too wide and deep to forge.  Maybe he looked too long with human eyes and he stopped believing in that which he could not see.  

Be a water wader.  Don’t let unknowns and half measures and mud pies and ‘good’ things steal from you the promises that lie on the other side of full and complete obedience!  Don’t leave promises unexplored and rivers uncharted.  You know when the Israelites crossed into the Promised Land, you know how that story goes?  The river didn’t just pile up as they slept, dry and ready when they were.  No!  Before the waters ever cleared, the priests had to put their feet in it!  They had to begin, they had to move in faith, they had to be willing to wade in the water before God revealed that He would not require them to! (Joshua 3:15) Don’t settle for a half fulfilling, decent life.  He died an extravagant and brutal death, not so that you could live a mediocre life, but so that you could be FULL!  

The other man here tied up his robes and went for a swim in the land of Promise.  Abram wouldn’t settle and he received all of the blessings of his obedience. His story we know–it’s the one that follows the course of the truly faithful.

Wade in the water, explore the promises on the other side, never settle for going halfway, follow in fullness, and watch the Lord deliver you to the greatness of the Promised Land.