The Promised Land

Whenever I read the story of the call of Abraham, I come away with the question: why did God choose where he chose for the Promised Land?

I mean, of all the places on this planet, why would God choose this rocky, little plot of land seemingly out in the middle of nowhere as his special and holy place? What was so unique about this area? Why not someplace like the French Riviera? Or the Red Sea? Italy? Why this patch of desert rock?

Well the answer is actually amazingly simple.

Trade routes.

Shechem and Beth-el, the places Abraham first settled around, were strategically located in the ancient world between two of the most travelled trade routes that ran north and south from Mesopotamia into Africa. It was literally the crossroads of the world at the time. All the traders from all the nations passed through this area, which meant that every nation in the ancient Near East would be exposed to whatever culture inhabited the land. It would be influential. The greatest Empires of the world would use these two primary trade routes to exchange not just merchandise, but stories and ways of life.

Ruth & Naomi: Friendship & Redemption

Scripture: Ruth 4

There’s nothing harder than trying to look past your current circumstances and feeling as though there might be hope somewhere in your future.

I feel a certain empathy for Naomi in the Book of Ruth. When the book opened up, we heard about how rough life was for Naomi. Her husband and two sons both died – leaving her a widow with no means to support herself. There was apparently also a famine in the land, because she decided to go back to her ancestral home because she had heard there was food in Israel.

So great was her sorrow, she even changed her name to “Mara,” meaning “bitter.”

A bitter, angry woman due to tragic circumstances in her life. Personally – I can’t imagine that kind of loss all at once. So I really don’t blame the woman for turning bitter and angry. Nothing in life so far is telling her that things will eventually get better. In fact, anyone who said that to her probably got their head bit off because it seemed like such a shallow statement, an empty platitude that is said when people don’t know what else to say.

Because when you’re in the midst of angst, darkness and tragedy – it’s hard to see that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, that life is ever going to be something different than where you’re currently at. On some level you might know it – but on another, all you see in front of you sometimes is the pitch black tunnel you’re careening through.