I sat motionless in my chair – head back against the wall, eyes staring in disbelief at the tiles on the ceiling of what was, just a few moments earlier, my office.

I’d been fired.

It happened on a Wednesday. I remember it well because, ironically, the sales staff had just taken me to lunch to celebrate my one-year anniversary with the firm. The year was 1983, and the city was Houston, Texas.

At the time Houston was largely known as an oil town. Every major oil company had a presence in the city, and nearly everybody I knew was associated with the petroleum industry. My wife, Gwynne, and I arrived in Houston after graduating from college, finding rent-free lodging with my brother in a town where every company seemed to be hiring. The thriving economy meant that even someone with my grade-point average could get a job!

Houston’s economy hummed along nicely until the early 80s when the oil industry went bust. Lifelong employees of large companies found themselves laid off en masse. The city was in turmoil. Homes fell into foreclosure as people scrambled to keep their financial heads above water. Former high-level executives grasped for any kind of employment they could find. They worked at lumberyards, fast-food restaurants, and laundromats. Desperation hung over the city like a dark, toxic smog.

I was working for a company that produced annual reports for large corporations. Even if things were bad economically, these companies still had shareholders to impress, and in a weak economy the annual report took on even greater importance as a tool to keep investors from panicking. I thought I had a recession-proof job.

I was one of eight people in a close-knit sales staff. We supported one another and became great friends. I felt confident that I’d arrived at a place where I would stay for a long, long time.

On the home front, Gwynne was a stay-at-home mom raising our first child. This motivated me to work especially hard; I was the sole breadwinner for a family of three. Success and prosperity came swiftly as I built a strong clientele. My sales volume in this depressed market surpassed that of my associates even though I was the newest member of the team. On my first anniversary, the sales team celebrated my early success and our friendship. 

After we got back from lunch, however, the owner called me into his office. Joe was in his late fifties, and he had served previously as a managing partner for a national accounting firm. His booming voice resonated throughout our office, and his piercing blue eyes always seemed to be scanning the staff for any hint of laziness or disloyalty. He was cold and calculating, which, to be honest, served him well in tough economic times. Joe’s well-earned reputation for pinching pennies led us to believe that he had financed the company by selling his mother—he was that kind of guy.

Joe was also an avid hunter, and whenever he spoke I could imagine him pulling out a knife and field dressing me as he would the wild game he shot—methodically, businesslike, emotionless. Joe’s demeanor intimidated all of us, and he seemed to neither notice nor care. When a member of the sales staff suggested we do something to relieve the tension and lighten the mood around the office, Joe tersely responded: “What the hell are you talking about? Nobody else around here feels tense!” He interpreted our fearful silence as an affirmation that everything was just fine.

On that infamous Wednesday, I sat nervously in front of Joe and sensed that something was horribly wrong. What I felt went beyond dread. It was a horrible sense of doom that wafted up from the deepest place in my soul. My mind quickly surveyed the status of my customer accounts in a desperate attempt to anticipate any mistake I might have made. Had I offended someone? Had one of my key accounts decided to take their business elsewhere? What could it be?

Joe began to speak, interrupting my mental inventory. “Tim,” he said, “you’ve done a good job in the limited time you’ve been with us. I have no complaints about that, and I appreciate the work ethic you’ve always brought to your job. But you and I know that presently we’re trying to weather a very tight economic downturn. I’m going to have to let you go.”

Boom.

I couldn’t believe what he had just said. Not knowing how to respond, I just stared at him in disbelief. He saw the shock on my face and perhaps even read the anger that was beginning to well up behind my eyes. He launched into a justification of his decision. “It’s not that you did anything wrong or that I enjoy giving you this news. I don’t. It troubles me deeply. It’s strictly a financial decision. By doing away with your salary and converting all of your accounts to house accounts, we can avoid paying commission on them. It’s nothing personal; it’s just business. I’m sorry.”

I had just been field dressed right there in Joe’s office. He cut me down the middle, took the best of me and discarded the rest as if I were no more valuable than an animal carcass. In an instant I felt the dread of being cast into the turbulent ocean of the unemployed. I was drowning in despair.

When I broke the news to the sales department their first reaction was to laugh it off; I mean, who would believe it? We had just been to lunch to celebrate my success, and the thought of me getting fired seemed like a bad joke. Slowly, however, reality began to settle in: I was telling the truth.

My friends responded with the same shock and disbelief I was feeling. The tears began to flow. Some of them vowed to exact some measure of revenge. They promised to find other jobs and leave the company even more short-handed than it already was. We all knew this was just talk, just a way to express their hurt and anger while voicing support for me. Nevertheless, venting allowed all of us a measure of temporary comfort. My friends watched as I entered into my Gethsemane.

I packed up my office, said my goodbyes and drove home thinking, What am I going to do? Nobody’s hiring; this can’t be real, can it? How am I going to break this news to Gwynne?

Soon my thoughts turned from self-doubt to the more damaging feelings of self-loathing; I had sunk to that place we frequently arrive at when we enter Gethsemane. I felt like a loser. I felt like a joke. What right did I have to think I’d ever be successful? Then, as if to execute the coup de grace of shameful despair, I began to think I deserved this. I hadn’t given God the glory when my colleagues praised me. Maybe God was punishing me for my pride.

Coming home in the middle of the day was unusual for me. So when I hit the door with box in hand, Gwynne knew something was amiss. As devastated as I was, I explained the situation and did my best to be philosophical about it; no need to panic my wife. 

All of that went out the window with her next statement: “I’m pregnant.”

Together we entered our Gethsemane. We had no insurance; how could we afford another baby? The burden felt too heavy to bear. Why would God allow this to happen? Or, more emotionally accurate: “Why would God do this to us?” The dreadful uncertainty of it all weighed on our shoulders, yet we knew that the only way out was to walk forward. I had entered a season that would lead me on a pilgrimage through the darkness leading to God knows where.

During this time of my life, Abraham became a mentor to me. Even now I’m amazed to see how his story mirrors the highs and lows of my life. The times when I faithfully leave everything to follow God are followed by moments of extreme cowardice when I betray those closest to me in an effort to save my own skin. Glory and depravity, all wrapped up into one complex package we call Tim King.

In the biblical story we meet Abraham when he is seventy-five years old and known as Abram.^[1] He lives in a major metropolitan area known as Ur, which may have been the most highly developed civilization of the time. He’s highly successful, wealthy, belongs to a large tribal clan, and owns servants, flocks, and herds. For Abram life is good.

Suddenly and almost out of nowhere, he hears a divine call. God directs Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”^[2] It’s a call to leave everything. God invites Abram to abandon his homeland, his relatives, and his father’s house. He tells Abram to cut all ties to his support system and set out on an ill-defined journey to an undisclosed destination. As amazing as this sounds, even more shocking is Abram’s willingness to do it. 

I’m drawn to Abram or Abraham, because of his adventurous streak. He had a certain spiritual moxie I like to think I share. There’s something almost audacious about his faith that made him willing to throw caution to the wind in response to God’s call. Abram’s daring heart resulted from his great faith, and his great faith appealed to me as I was reeling from being fired. Paul honored Abraham by calling him the father of faith, and I was longing for the same kind of faith. It is said that Abram believed God, as if those three words explain why a man who had amassed wealth and respect, who was established in his tribe and his homeland, would simply set out for no particular place because an invisible deity told him to. I wanted it said of me that I believed God. I wanted that same kind of implicit trust.

But how and where would I find a level of trust that would make sense of unemployment, the prospect of a second child when I had no insurance, and an uncertain future in a city where the bottom had fallen out of the economy? How could I move forward into God knows where?

Throughout life—and even when we’ve entered Gethsemane—we may already have a good idea where our path is headed. Jesus knew in advance that his Gethsemane would lead him to the cross, but he had no way to fully anticipate the fear and dread of those final hours. Likewise, I assumed that I would eventually find a job. But meanwhile, what would happen to my young family? Suddenly I was walking to an unknown place, and it was anybody’s guess what I might encounter along the way.

These unknowns added tension and excitement to the voyage. They do for all of us, and that is a wake-up call. The uncertainties of life enliven us to the quest for the way of God in the midst of lives we sometimes view as too mundane for living. They draw out and even require the engagement of our adventurous nature, beckoning us to trust as we move step by step through the back of the desert, a darkened garden, or the anxiety of life’s losses. 

If God’s call to leave everything behind and set out without being told where he was going was all we knew of Abram’s story, that alone would provide inspiration for Jesus and for us to navigate through Gethsemane. But there’s so much more. The story gathers momentum when God makes what must have seemed to Abram an unfathomable promise: “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”^[3]

No matter how successful a man has become, how would he process such a promise? Abram would become a great nation? Not a clan or a tribe, but a nation. His name would be great and he would be a source of blessing for all the families of the earth. God was assuring this elderly Bedouin that he would be the spring of a blessing that would transform the world. He was no longer just another desert sheik. Thanks to God’s grace, Abraham’s life and legacy would be changed forever.

Think of the promise God made to his Son, as Jesus struggled in the darkness with his own call. Unlike Abram leaving Ur, Jesus knew the destination and the eventual outcome of his earthly life. Still, it made his decision no less arduous. Abram needed monumental faith to set out on an open-ended journey, but he had God’s assurances that his name would be great and his seed would be multiplied, blessing every family on earth. He must have known that on some level, following God’s command would involve suffering and sacrifice, but just think of God’s glorious promise. 

It’s easy to think that Jesus had some super-human capacity that insulated him from the deepest pangs of emotional and spiritual suffering. But Jesus was not super-human, he was fully human. In truth, Jesus needed faith on a higher scale than any other man if he was to fulfill his mission. The ultimate outcome of his obedience would change eternity; it would bless every family on earth. And he, of course, knew that in advance.

But the journey between Gethsemane and Jesus’s kingship necessarily led through Golgotha. In our own way, many of us have or will suffer similar dark and despairing burdens that weighed on Jesus as he uttered his anguishing prayer, asking God if the cup might not be taken from him. And I think that is why Jesus was called to walk this path. It was imperative that we might understand his willingness to walk in our steps, to doubt and fear, to suffer and even die.

Jesus knew the story of Abram, of course. Christ was central to God’s statement, “Let Us make humankind in our image.”^[4] He was the centerpiece of creating the planet Abram lived on, the creation of Abram and his family and he was there when Abram was called out of Ur. But the man Jesus, walking the earth and facing the struggles, temptations, and limits of life as a human, very likely drew strength from the story of his ancient ancestor.

Abraham occupied no elite status that attracted promises from God to the exclusion of the rest of us. Think about this: the Almighty God, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, has made astounding promises to you as well. But when you are suffering, what’s the point of a promise if it doesn’t protect you from the fire?

On the cruel Wednesday when Joe acknowledged my success and then promptly fired me, I felt unworthy, insignificant, and downright sinful. I believed God was punishing me for soaking in the celebration of my first year. I was convinced that I had arrogantly enjoyed the applause of my colleagues. If God had promised me anything, I certainly wasn’t focused on what that might mean.

I had missed the most powerful and transforming truth of the life of faith. Instead of acknowledging my limitations and trusting God’s love and strength, I was seeing my struggles as proof of God’s condemnation. I believed that he had brought me low lest I rise too high emotionally and even—heaven forbid—get joyful.

Today, this kind of thinking triggers my spiritual gag reflex, but at that time and place, I thought my spiritual weakness was to blame for my troubles. Looking back, I can see that I had just received one of many ‘wake-up calls’ my journey would bring. The blessing of that Gethsemane awoke me to the vibrancy of God’s promise to all of us.

As believers you and I are part of the great nation God promised to Abram. As followers of Christ, we wear the name above all names. All families of the earth are blessed through us as we lovingly share and enact the greatest story that’s ever been told. God’s promise contains the ultimate power to heal, bring peace, and help others find their way. Listen closely to God’s promises in Abram’s story and dare yourself to believe that we participate in the same blessed assurance God gave to Abram.

Maybe the magnitude of these promises finally motivated Abram to leave his comfortable life in Ur. He responded not just to the call of God, but also to the incredible promises. He awoke to his desire to add a line to a story that transcended and included his own. With Abram’s call from God, our human story takes a drastic turn upward. God is beginning to call to himself a people.

Responding to the call, Abram gathers his family and possessions (and even a relative or two) and ventures to the land of Canaan, the Promised Land. As life would have it, as soon as Abram arrives a famine arises in the land. I related to this part of the story. I had been in my new city for a relatively short time before my resources dried up. Suddenly I was desperate just to survive. I would go anywhere and do almost anything to keep food on the table. Apparently Abram felt the same way; he took a detour through Egypt.

As he journeys in Egypt, it occurs to Abram that a powerful Egyptian may see his beautiful wife, Sarai, and desire her for himself. The easiest way to acquire her would be to make her a widow – an idea Abram is not all that keen about. To save his own life, Abram instructs his wife to say that she is his sister so that “it will go well for me.”^[5] Selfishly fearful, he doesn’t seem overtly concerned about how well it might “go” for Sarai.

Gwynne and I once took a motorcycle ride through Amish country. As we cruised along a scenic byway, a bird suddenly flew in front of us. I had the presence of mind to duck, but not the presence of mind to warn my wife, who was suddenly wearing a dead sparrow as a fashion accessory. For the next several minutes all I heard was Gwynne muttering, “Oh gross. Gross. Oh gross. Oh this is so gross.” When we found a place to stop and clean up, Gwynne informed that I should always warn her when I know that a bird is about to collide into her shoulder at 65 miles per hour. A lot of us are conditioned to think of ourselves first. Maybe Abram was like that. Maybe he felt God’s promise to him made Sarai expendable.

Back in Houston, I experienced another wakeup call. Realizing that I had a new baby on the way prompted me to knock off my self-pity. I didn’t have the luxury of blaming my plight on Joe, the company, or the economy, or even my perceived spiritual shortcomings. The situation simply was, and I had to make some decisions about what was best for our family. I didn’t have time for self-pity as I crafted a résumé, hit the streets, and began seeking a new job—any job. I refused to nurture my pride at the expense of my wife, son, and soon-to-be daughter.

Now, I’m no hero. I shudder to think how often I’ve sold out those closest to me because I was so preoccupied in doing “my own thing,” so self-absorbed that I was asleep to the better plans God had for me and my family. However, with Abram’s story before me, I can awaken to the blessing of serving those closest to me.

As Abram’s story unfolds, we learn that his profile of the Egyptians was apparently pretty accurate: Pharaoh abducts Sarai, intending to add her to his harem.^[6] Fortunately God intervenes to protect Abram’s family. But this doesn’t justify Abram’s actions. His trust in God had faltered; if God could rescue Sarai from Abram’s stupidity, could he not have rescued Abram from Pharaoh’s expected violence? What other stories of God’s grace might have been recorded by believers that will never be known? This is one of the tragic consequences of the story of Abram’s momentary lapse of faith: we’ll never know what might have been.

Instead, we are left with what is. After Abram’s betrayal of Sarai, God speaks to him. We might expect God to scold or condemn Abram; instead, God whispers comfort: “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield.” It’s as if God wants to be sure that Abram gets the connection between the promises of God and the protection of God. God will safeguard what he has promised, and this gave me hope as I sought work in Houston.

Notwithstanding Abram’s faithlessness, God remained faithful to his promise, even repeating his promise of making Abram a great nation.^[7] He assures Abram that he will have a son and that his descendants will indeed be as numerous as the stars of the heavens.

Most of us like to be in full control of our lives. Unfortunately this often is the first step to dozing off to reality. Our deepest sleepwalking begins when we start relying more on ourselves than God in determining the directions our lives will go. Subsequently life becomes unmanageable as we become more like the stereotypical husband who has lost his way and stubbornly refuses to stop and ask for directions.

At times it’s almost humorous the way we mask our intent to live independently of God. At the very least we try to help God along, like the small child who wants to “help” with the cooking. Abram and Sarai are like us in this way. God had promised Abram a son, and since Sarai was past the age of childbearing, they decided to formulate Plan B. In that culture (though it seems a little weird to us), an infertile wife could offer one of her servants as a surrogate mother. So Sarai decided to give her handmaiden Hagar to Abram so that he might father a child. It may seem like a bit of a reach to us, but we can hear them reasoning: “How else can the will of God be accomplished? This is the only way I can see.” Which, really, is the problem: God is not limited by what we can see. He’s certainly not limited by what we can do. And in many cases, he doesn’t need a whole lot of help from us to get done what he sets out to do.

In time the union of Abram and Hagar brings forth a son, Ishmael, but it also brings so much more. Sarai’s graciousness soon ferments into bitterness and jealousy. Their great idea—the one that appeared to be their only option—was backfiring. It was time for God to intervene again – and he did.

At this juncture, we might wonder why Abram and Sarai were not more patient, more faithful in allowing God’s promises to unfold. Why didn’t they keep waiting on God and even ask for a miracle? Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. How many octogenarian couples do you know having babies? It is so laughingly impossible that it never entered their minds to make such a request.

And that’s the point. The Book of Hebrews says this about faith: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”^[8] If you break it down it seems simple enough. God assures us of something, and that is the basis for our conviction that it will indeed take place. The assurance comes from God and is the sole ground for the conviction blossoming from it. Without the assurance of God, there is no reason for conviction. Having the conviction is what we call faith. Having the assurance but lacking the conviction is, basically, faithless.

Jesus tells us, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”^[9] Perhaps Jesus was thinking of Abraham, or Elijah, or Joseph when he spoke these words. Might his words have been inspired by men who obeyed God and still found themselves in dire circumstances—conditions that seemed to deny God’s goodness? Yet in every instance Jesus understood that God prevailed and provided.

I had heard these words of Jesus countless times as I listened to my father’s sermons. This assurance of God should give us the conviction that God is present and that we will never go without the necessities of life.

But try telling me this when I lost my job. You would think the apocalypse had arrived; my own personal Armageddon. Immediately I went into crisis mode. Suddenly life became all about things like food and clothing. My mind obsessed over all the horrible things that were certain to occur. God tells us that life is about so much more than these things, but I had been sleepwalking through life, stumbling through faith. I quickly awoke in my newfound Gethsemane. Looking around I asked, “How did I get here?”

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but if you would have quoted that bit to me about birds and barns when I had just been fired, I would have told you to get real. I didn’t need pithy little Bible sayings; I needed a job! I was so blind at the time I thought my success in the business world had been my own doing. Because I failed to recognize all that God had already done for me, I entered my Gethsemane without any real sense of conviction that I would be fine.

Fortunately God never lets our faithless stupidity get in the way of working a good story in our lives. At the breaking point of what has now become the dysfunctional (and somewhat convoluted) family of Abram, Sarai, Hagar, and Ishmael, God intervenes to deliver news too good to be true: Abram and Sarai will have a child together. The idea is so off-the-chart unfathomable that Sarai’s only response is to laugh.^[10] That’s the way grace is. It’s too good to be true. It’s beyond anything we can imagine. It’s laughable.

The only question God poses to Abram is this: “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” And with this we hear another of life’s wakeup calls. We might expect a different (but equally rhetorical) question: “Is anything too difficult for God?” But no – the question on this day is, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”^[11] God intervenes in our lives not just to work some random “something.” God is in the business of working the wonderful. But sleepwalking through life causes us to overlook this desire of God. We think it’s faith to dare to believe that God will do something, anything. And we hope desperately that what he does will be good.

Still, God forgives our lack of faith and does astounding things for us. As he walks with us he constantly makes opportunities to intervene in wonderful, grace-filled ways. Ways that might even make us laugh.

A few pages of the biblical story covers more than two decades in the life of Abraham. It’s twenty-four years from his call to leave Ur until he receives the promise that he and Sarai will have a son. Imagine: for nearly a quarter of a century, Abram faithfully walks with the promise of God even though it seems utterly impossible.

I can’t help but see a certain significance in this length of time. As I write these words I am some twenty-four years removed from having been fired from my sales job. Like Abraham, I’m only now beginning to see God’s promises blossom in my life. This wakeup call speaks to the patience essential to living with ourselves, God, and others as he continues to work his amazing grace in our lives.

Many times I’ve wanted to give up along the way. I’ve been tempted to give up on God. I’ve been tempted to give up on others, sometimes even betraying them. Mostly, I’ve been tempted to give up on myself. More than once my Gethsemanes have been so dark, so ugly, so excruciatingly painful that I’ve questioned the value of turning another one of life’s pages. On a hot August day in Houston, I just wanted to shut the book.

But through it all God has been speaking, leading, loving. Through it all God has impressed upon me this principle: When you realize that something endures forever, don’t let it go. Keep it. Never give up on yourself or others. And certainly don’t give up on God.

This is more than a good rule of thumb; it’s the principle of the eternal things of life. As Abraham learned, faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. The God who speaks into the barrenness of a formless void to create all things is waiting to do nothing less in the darkness of our Gethsemanes. His promise is sure: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). God is still very much in the business of bringing hope out of nothing at all.

And what about Jesus sweating drops of blood in Gethsemane? What might Abraham’s story have provided for Jesus as he considered not only God’s promise, but God’s call to leave the garden and journey to the cross? Jesus knows that ultimately, if God is to bless the nations through Abraham’s seed, that it will require nothing less than the surrender of his own life. It means he must go forward.

But Jesus asks his Father if there isn’t some other way. Can’t God work out his plan of redemption without the cross? Can’t the cup be removed? Like Abram longing for the promised son who still had not come, Jesus must ask if he can trust God’s promise. Is the cross the only way? Can’t another way be found? Do I force the issue or wait for God to deliver me in his time and in his way?

In Gethsemane we can hear the echo of the question posed to Abraham centuries before, now reverberating within the mind of Christ: “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” Can this One, who speaks worlds into being, speak once more in a way that will bring hope out of barrenness? Jesus believes that God is prepared to do just that. Even so, the price will be immense.

As is so often the case with us in our Gethsemanes, the anguish of Jesus has only begun. God doesn’t promise a life that’s free of pain; he promises his deliverance. And sometimes that deliverance takes us head-on into the darkness we would do most anything to escape. The purpose of faith is to be assured that we will never pass through this darkness alone, isolated or without the strength to endure.

With this in mind Jesus again walks in our shoes and lives in our stuff. He begins taking his first steps into the great abyss… of walking God knows where.

 

 

URL: http://www.presence.tv/cms/per_abraham-walking-god-knows-where.php

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