Returning is no shameful thing.
In last week's blog, I touched on the God Who Comes to us. And, yes, for all those who asked, by "coming" I meant "in whatever way He chooses." That includes how He's come in the past, in the Bible, which leaves His options wide, wide open.
If there's one thing I've learned in 38 years of being a Christian, it's this: Look for God to show Himself.
C. S. Lewis crystallized it for me in the Chronicles of Narnia: the WHOLE POINT of the entire series is to find Aslan. The kids in the books always make the mistake of doing their own thing and not waiting for Aslan, not believing he'll come again or believing that He no longer knows or cares to come. Then, when everything else has failed, the crescendo begins of "Aslan is on the move." To this day, those words give me the chills of expectation.
When recently conducting an in-depth study of the life of Abram/Abraham I noticed Abram/Abraham learned the same lesson. He starts out almost surely a pagan. God speaks to him and tells him to leave his father's family and start out for a land God will show him. (An interesting Hebrew word there, ar-e-kah, only used one other time in Zechariah 1:9, when the angel showed the prophet something through a vision.)
He partially obeys, taking his father and his nephew. He stops in Haran long enough to let his father (who he was not supposed to take along in the first place) die. After his father dies, God calls him to leave again. When he makes it to the Terebinth trees in Mamre, God appears to him. God appears and tells him "To your offspring I will give this land."
This is significant: It's the first time since Adam that we are told God appears, unless you count when God says "Let us go down" and see the evil of the Tower of Babel or perhaps God walking with Enoch.
Abram/Abraham makes an altar and moves on to a place between Bethel and Ai. He makes another altar, but God does not speak nor does he appear.
Instead of returning to the place where God appeared, he moves further and further south. Instead of believing God would make provision, he saw the famine in the land and went even further south to Egypt, endangering his wife, and exposing the Egyptians to Yahweh worship. We know that God goes with him because He protects Sarai/Sarah, but still, God is silent.
After Pharaoh's men escort them out of Egypt, he returns north to the altar between Bethel and AI, and calls out to God, who does not answer or appear. It was not until there, that Lot is finally shaken off (again, someone Abram/Abraham was not supposed to take in the first place) and then God speaks. I think it's clear that here, finally, Abram/Abraham learns his lesson and returns to the trees of Mamre where God first appeared to him.
Then God comes again. He comes when Abram/Abraham has finally surrendered his hope of a surrogate son in Lot, finally fulfilling God's call to leave his father's family. God appears to Abram/Abraham, makes a covenant, and renames him by giving him His own spirit in the addition of the "ha" sound for the fire or spirit of God (ruah).
I don't know if Abraham had wanderlust and needed to get it all out of him. I don't know why "This is the land" wasn't enough for him at first. I don't know if he was so taken up with the burdens of traveling and keeping everyone moving forward that he didn't recognize the signal to stop. I don't know if the famine was so severe he didn't think he had another choice and maybe only planned on staying in Egypt "for a while" (Genesis 12:10).
Was he so hung up on the land that he missed the real inheritance and the point of the whole trip: A God who comes, appears, and speaks? A God who dwells with us?
Whatever the reason for going forward to the wrong places, returning to where God first appeared was the right thing to do.
Our lesson is clear: If God hasn't shown up or clearly spoken or made His presence known to you recently, return to when and where He last did so. If you have obeyed only partially—which is still disobedience—fully surrender and walk in obedience. Look for God-On-The-Move.
God's apparent grace to us is that when we do return, He embraces us like the prodigal son's father.
Grace enables the return trip and meets us there.