So [Abram] built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. (Genesis 12:7b, NIV)
Summer’s coming, and with it perhaps you are planning a golf trip to one of those attractive northern destinations—Bandon Dunes, Whistling Straits, maybe up into Canada, or off to Scotland or Ireland. It’s easier to dream of golf splendor when the weather subsides and the options multiply.
Skiers and fishermen have their destinations, too. Surfers chase waves, sailors look for islands, and mountaineers climb their peaks. We all have places that epitomize our favorite activities.
What makes these places special may be their uniqueness or their beauty, their challenge or their remoteness. Whatever it is, these places cause us to stop and look around, not only at what we can see but at what we can’t. When we get away from our life, we may finally have a chance to recognize it for what it has become and for where it needs to go.
Sometimes, then, stepping back from the routine is the most important thing we can do.
I find this concept in the altar building of the patriarchs of old.
When Noah came out of the ark with his family, his next reported act was to build an altar to the Lord. There he sacrificed some of the ceremonially clean animals he had taken on board with him. The laws for sacrifice had not yet been given to Moses, but Noah knew what to do: honor God. For all the leg-stretching and land-gazing he might have done after being cooped up in that ark for a year afloat, Noah took time for worship.
After the genealogies of Genesis progress from Noah forward, the next full accounting we read of a man’s life is that of Abram (Abraham). After God led Abram to Canaan, he said to this called man, “To your offspring I will give this land.” Abram’s response? He built an altar. He did not hear from the LORD then run ahead of him; rather, he heard from the LORD and stopped to worship him. (Just one verse later, we find Abram building another altar, from where he “called on the name of the LORD.”)
We build few altars these days. But we don’t dare not stop. (Read that again!) We don’t dare go on about our business as though God has nothing to do with it. We are still God’s people, still in need of times and places of worship, still in need of calling on the Lord and hearing what he has next for us.
Where will you stop today?
—
Jeff Hopper
May 20, 2013
Copyright 2013 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.