Daily Devotions

Gen 13:9

Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.

Abraham was known for his godly character and faith, we see that when God called him to come out of the land of the Chaldean he brought along his nephew Lot and his family. Over the period of time, they have come into Canaan and both have prospered. The passage tells us that both Abraham’s and Lot’s flock of animals have become so large that the servants were fighting for grazing ground for the animals.

Apart from the large flock of animals, we also know that Abraham had accrued large quantity of gold and silver. With all these wealth Abraham still exhibited a character of humility where he graciously gave way to his nephew to make the first choice of having the grazing grounds.

Lot chose the fertile Jordan valley that had a lot of water and pasture. But unfortunately he chose to set up his camp at the fringe of Sodom and the people there were living in grave sin. They were a sexually perverse people. In today’s terms all the people were homosexuals and lesbians. We are also told that when the angels came to Lot’s tent to spend the night, the men of the town came and demanded for the angels to be handed over so that the men can have sexual relationship with them.

Coming back to Abraham, his character also speaks of the same values of our Father God who is all powerful and all sufficient but who is so generous to us His children. God has always wanted to bless His children and he allows them to make their own choice. God has never been forceful but always gracious and merciful. He allows us to make our choices even though often He knows that the choices that we make can lead us into troubles.

God allows us to make mistakes and to learn from it. Just like Lot who made the mistake of walking by sight and not by faith. Lot chose according to the flesh whereas Abraham relied on the leading of God and also trusting in God’s blessings.

This is a lesson for us that as we grow in our faith we need to walk and trust in God, He knows the future that He has for us, He knows the good things that He had planned for us. However, He allows His people to make their choice.

Like the Israelite that Moses brought out of Egypt, God allowed them to make their own choice and subsequently they paid the price for their disobedience. The first generation of Israelite who came out of Egypt did not enter the Promised Land except for Joshua and Caleb.  All the rest perished including Moses.

This si the lesson, when we are not obedient to God, we will miis out on the blessings of God.