LET GOD DO THE CHOOSING

LET GOD DO THE CHOOSING

"Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art" Gen. 13:14

These words were spoken to Abram when he was in a place of peculiar difficulty. He was now in the land to which he had been sent by God. Moreover he was there after a deflection from the pathway of faith, in which deflection he had gone down into Egypt. An hour had come when domestic difficulties had arisen between him and his kinsman, Lot. It had become necessary for them to separate from each other. With the magnanimity of a great soul, Abram had given to Lot the right to choose the place where he would dwell in the land, and Lot had chosen. The result was that Abram, on that level of human arrangement, was excluded from the best of the country. It was at this juncture that God Communed with him, and gave him this command. The words are seen in their true suggestiveness when they are put into contrast with those found in the 10th verse, “Lot lifted up his eyes." In doing so Lot had chosen upon the ground of personal advantage. When he had gone, God said to the man who had chosen not to choose, "Lift up now thine eyes," and directed him to look "northward and southward and eastward and westward"; that was to every point of the compass and consequently over all the land; including that which Lot had chosen for himself. All he thus looked upon was then secured to him by the covenant of God. The teaching of the account is obvious. Man has no final rights in any possessions other than those which are his by the gift of God. The man who, by faith, leaves the choices of his life to God, is the man who finds his way into possessions of which he cannot be robbed. God makes His choices on complete and absolute Truth and Knowledge based on the past, present and the future He has in store for all mankind.