Good morning. There was a saying where I grew up that went, “Close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades”. In the game of horseshoes, you don’t need ringers to achieve a score (although they help), and when it comes to hand grenades, the damage is usually broad and severe enough that precision isn’t necessary. There are situations in life where that saying seems to apply. When we don’t quite hit the mark, fully accomplish what we are trying to do, or we don’t satisfy a need fully, but just enough to get by, at least for now. We may shrug it off and think, “close enough…I guess”.
When we get used to living in a “close enough” style, it is hard to break away. We become too familiar with sloppy results, and we accept those half hearted efforts.
This doesn’t work with our relationship with God. God requires our best. God deserves our best. God blesses us when we are trusting and functioning at our best.
When God first came to Abraham, He gave him His direct command and told Abraham what would result when he obeyed the commands of God: Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” Genesis 12:1-2
Did Abraham listen and obey? Yes, at least he did for the most part. God’s command was very clear: Abraham was to go, to leave his country behind, to leave his family behind, and travel by faith to a place God had chosen for him. God’s promise was to bless him. The trouble came when Abraham obeyed God “for the most part”. He did everything God commanded except he brought his nephew Lot along. So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Genesis 12:4
We don’t often pay much attention to those words, and Lot went with him, but they are critically important. Abraham thought of himself as too old to do all that God required, so he decided to bring Lot along, perhaps as something of an insurance policy. The end result was a detour into Egypt, a dispute between Lot’s people and his own, Lot settling in Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham needing to rescue Lot, the birth of Isaac (God’s promise of a son) was long delayed. In the delay we read of the birth of Ishmail, which became a tragedy for generations. The list of Abraham’s problems is a long one.
Abraham felt the need to obey God “mostly” but not completely. The result was years of heartache and trouble. If only he had trusted God from the beginning and obeyed absolutely…if only.
There is a lesson for us in Abraham’s story. God demands complete obedience because He loves us, and God knows that His way results in blessing while our own efforts will result in hardship and pain.
Trust Him completely today. Obey Him completely today, Be blessed completely today.
Vern