His Plan

DEVOTION

GENESIS

HIS PLAN

Gen 11:10-32

10 This is the account of Shem.

Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. 11 And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters. 12 When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah. 13 And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.   14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber. 15 And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters. 16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg. 17 And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters. 18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu. 19 And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug. 21 And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters. 22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor. 23 And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters. 24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah. 25 And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters. 26 After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

27 This is the account of Terah.

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. 28 While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. 29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children. 31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.

NIV

We have a whole of fathers who gave birth to sons in order to show us that from Shem we get to the man Abram, with whom we will spent much time. Of course becomes the father of many nations and through his line we have Jesus coming into the world. It cannot be certain why we are told how old each man was when he had the son we are told the name of that son. Each man had other sons and daughters, but this one son is the one through the line traced to Abram. It has to be of some importance as to why we are told how old each was when he fathered this particular son. It is interesting if we chart it all out that we find it was three hundred and ninety years from the time Shem gave birth to his son until Abram was born. We also note that Shem lived a total of six hundred years and his father Noah lived nine hundred and fifty years which would have meant both of them were still alive when Abram was born, although many of the men in the line of descendants had already died. Their ages or lifespans kept getting shorter. It is also noted that some of the other sources of this genealogy are a little different in timespans, but the point any of them make is to bring us to Abram. Here we find Terah had three sons and the reason we have to know that is because of the man Lot, who is Abrams nephew and whom we will also spend some time with. We are being informed of the whole family setting because now we are going to walk with them through their lives learning valuable lessons for our lives.  What we come to is the conclusion of this line, but also the beginning of this family. The first thing we notice is that it was Terah who decided to set out for Canaan. He did not take his whole family, at least they are not mentioned as going with him. The part of his family that is mentioned is his son Abram and his wife Sarai plus Terah's grandson Lot who was a nephew to Abram. We are also told that Sarai was barren. We are being given the set up for the time and lessons we will learn from these three people. But what can we learn from this set up? It would seem as we reflect on our walk with God, he does not just spring something on us, but rather moves things around in our life, gradually changing our situations until his move is obvious to us. He gives us some set up for the change he is about to make, the lesson he is about to teach us. This is not to say he could not intervene supernaturally with an overpowering majestic command that comes like a lighting strike. But with most of our life he has taken the time to give us the set up so we are ready for what is to come in our lives. He has given us insights and allowed us to ponder on them before making any moves, or changes. The Spirit speaks to us in that still small voice leading us gently through a change. As we see here with Abram, he was not called by God to leave Ur, as much as he was brought to Haran by his father. His path of changing his lifestyle was being set up by God, so that Abram would be able to continue the change from living an urban life to one of a Bedouin. It may have been too much for him to just make that kind of massive change in his life all at once. God was gracious to him, preparing him for the major change that was to occur. He surely acts this same way in our lives. He is a God who cares about our every need, physical, mental, emotional and he brings us along in a way that we can make the changes he desires in and for our lives. Sometimes he could use someone else to begin our journey. Another person who testifies to us about the Jesus, and we make the change from living a sinful life to one of learning to live to please him. He can use another person to take us on another path, such as he used Terah, Abrams father to start him on the journey to Canaan and living a Bedouin life following the leading of God. We certainly cannot put God in a box, so to speak, but we can see that he moves in various ways to accomplish his will for our lives. The point we are seeing, is just that, God is accomplishing his plan.