“Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan.” —Genesis 12:5 NKJV

God wanted to give Abram the best of everything; but in order to do that Abram had to give all that he had to God. In other words, he had to entrust everything that he possessed to God’s care, believing that the LORD would take good care of all that he had gathered and would provide for his needs. He couldn’t have received the full measure of God’s blessing without doing this.  And so Abram did just that when he took all of his possessions with him. Thus he left no room for excuses to return to the place that God called him out of; he wasn’t about to forfeit his blessing for anything.

Is God calling you to enter into new territory? If so, will you entrust everything to His care or will you leave something behind to use as an excuse to turn back if things don’t appear to be to your liking at some point?  Of course, time will tell…  But maybe you are on the verge of turning back from a calling that you had entered into long ago because things don’t look so good where you are right now.  Have you really entrusted everything to God, or did you leave something behind that you should have given to Him?  If you once knew that it was God’s will for you to be where you are right now but are thinking of turning back because you’re facing hardships and trials, then I think that it is safe to say that you really haven’t surrendered everything to God.

Listen, that which we possess must be separated from what is common if it is to be used for God’s purpose. That is, it must become God’s possession.  Not our excuse to turn back from carrying out God’s will when the heat gets turned up.  After all, if we expect God to bless us then we need to leave no room for doubting that He will lead us to where we need to be to satisfy all of our needs.  Right now, your mind may be plagued with what you perceive to be a lot of unanswered questions; you might even be hurt or angry because of your circumstances.  Whatever the case may be, please keep in mind that while it is true that God promises to bless us in our obedience; He never said that it would be a walk in the park, so to speak.

So, hang on!  Don’t let go!  In due time, you will know why God brought you to the place where you are at right now.  And when you look back on all of this you will see that you made the right choice to give everything to Him. For there is no better place to be than in God’s will; and there is no better person to entrust our possessions to than He who created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them.  Hence the only thing that you should leave behind when you hear the call of God is that which would keep you from answering to it.

• Go back to: Articles on Faith
• Go to next article: No More Excuses