How to leave Haran
Message Summary: What is the state of our relationships and goals?
As we start a new school year, it is a good time to look at where we are at and what we are journeying towards. How are your goals? How are your relationships? What would it look like to finish goals and accomplish what you set out to?
This is something that we can look to Terah and Abram for some insight. Terah is Abram’s father and chose to set out from the land of Ur to go to Canaan. We know that Ur was next to desert, while Canaan is a place next to the Mediterranean Sea and would have been full of opportunities with trades, food, and abundance. They were setting off to a better life. However, they stopped and settled in Harran, which was the half-way point. Terah died there. We are given context to this in the book of Joshua, when it was written years later that they worshipped “other gods.”
What are the “little g” gods that cause us to settle or stop half-way?
This could be ease, comfort, routine, business, etc. What are the things that stop us from accomplishing the things that we are setting out to do. Every hard thing we do is worth doing. We must ask what the halfway point is that is keeping us from accomplishing our goals. We must ask what it is that is keeping us at our halfway point.
What does it look like to finish our race (or goal)?
Jesus shows us the way to finish in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had done a lot of great things, but to finish was going to be incredibly painful and difficult. He said to God, “Not as I will, but as You will.” He backed that up when He was arrested, by telling Peter that He could call down help to stop this if He wanted, but that this was the way that it must be done based on the will of God.
If we want to accomplish our goals, we must take a posture of following God’s will and not our own, even when it is difficult.
- What are some things that get in the way of progress for you in life?
- What are the things that you are being called to now?
- How can we as a group help you to “finish” these things?
- What do you see the impact for others being when you are able to finish your goals?
Genesis 11:31-32 – Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.
Joshua 24:2 – Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.