Hebrews 11:8-9: He Went Without the Address

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

Hebrews 11:8-9 (NIV)

He Went Without the Address

The parking lot empties fast, and then there are the two who stay. They stand where the sidewalk meets the grass, half turned toward their cars, finishing a conversation that finished a while ago. One of them has had her keys in her hand for ten minutes. She cried during the last song, and she hasn’t said why, and the sun’s straight overhead by now.

God called Abraham to a place he would receive later, and he went without knowing where he was going. He obeyed before he could have said what he was obeying toward. Then he arrived in the land God had promised him, and he put up a tent.

A tent comes down in an hour. He made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country, and his son and his grandson, heirs of the same promise, lived that way after him. Three generations of canvas inside a promise from God, and it didn’t mean God had gone back on anything.

Two things were true of one man at the same time. The land under his tent was the land God had promised him, and the day he would receive it was ahead of him. He obeyed a God who keeps his word, and he spent his life on ground that was his only because God had said so.

Obey the part he’s already given you, and start moving before the address comes. God asked Abraham for the going first, and Abraham went with almost nothing to go on.

Out on the grass the conversation has run out twice and started up again on nothing. Neither of them starts walking, because walking would settle it, and the shadows are as short as they get all year. Ten minutes from her own driveway, she asks him a question she already knows the answer to.