If you take the left, then I will go to the right;
or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left. —Genesis 13:9
As soon as you begin to live the
life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will
open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the
life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God
make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of
testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if
you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive
your right and allow God to make your choice for you. This is the discipline
God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His
voice.
Whenever our right
becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The
greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which
are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. In this
passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would
be to choose. It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to
be a fool for not choosing.
Many of us do not continue to
grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our rights,
instead of relying on God to make the choice for us. We have to learn to walk
according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to
us, as He did to Abram, “…walk before Me…” (Genesis 17:1).
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