“Go from your country and your kindred”
James Cathcart
March 01, 2026
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Genesis 12 :1-4 (NIV-UK)
1 The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2
‘I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.3
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.’4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.
Sometimes Jesus’s invitation to “Come follow me”, calls us like Abram to leave what we know, and who we know. Even if we anticipate blessing as we set out on the next chapter… slamming the boot and adjusting the rearview mirrors can be bittersweet.
Jesus’s call in our lives is not a path to enlightenment (though we may find it enlightening). Nor is it a guarantee of health and happiness (though along the way we will be patched up and discover surprising joy). Neither is it a roadmap to success and achievement (indeed a life too protected from pain, or failure, or frustration may be walking directly away from Jesus).
Jesus doesn’t offer us escapism, detachment, or an ‘opt out’. As we will read later this week: ‘God so loved the world…’ and we are called to love it too. Christianity does not give us a way to ignore, diminish or ‘rise above’ the problems of this world. Jesus never rises above suffering and pain, but instead is right with us through it.
Jesus offers us sanctuary, but it’s a restless sanctuary, manifestly in this world, travelling through this world. It’s a ship in the waves that offers shelter not away from the storm, but through it. This is the inspiration behind Albert and myself’s podcast Restless Sanctuary and Jack’s fantastic illustration for it. We are restless Christians making our way through a restless world. Christ shelters us not to take us away from the world — bur rather to draw us more deeply into it.
Jesus is not calling you to enlightenment. Jesus is not calling you to be healthy and happy. Jesus is not calling you to succeed and achieve.
But Jesus is calling you to an adventure.
For, what Jesus does offer us, as God offered Abram, is an adventure of a lifetime. An opportunity to be immersed in the bittersweet wonder of living, as we walk this earth and glimpse the deep grace and compassion at the heart of the universe.
So Abram went.
What about us, will we go?
Prayer:
Dear God,
Help me to respond to the call to adventure
and the holy restlessness within me,
Amen.
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