Saturday's Devo - We Will Follow

We leave today for skiing!!! I thought I would deviate from 1 Samuel and talk about Isaac. Genesis is my favorite book in the Bible. God lays down the whole plan for the rest of existance in Genesis. Today I was reading Gen. 24 where Abraham sends his servant to go find a wife for Isaac. This is a type of the Holy Spirit finding a wife for Jesus. When the servant asks Abraham if he should take Isaac with him, Abraham gives an emphatic, "NO!" I think he didn't want Isaac to see how easy life was back home and want to stay. He had left there to follow God and he wanted his son to follow this nomadic life walking the land he had been given by God. This wife had to have the same sense of adventure and faith. She had to be willing to leave everything to follow him. Before she even knew she had been chosen, she was given a test: would she served this man and his animals? Was she humble, gracious, giving, and not tied to her past? Would she lay it all down by faith and take a man's word for truth? She was all these things. She watered his cattle and invited him to her house to stay. After hearing the servant's intentions, Rebekah's father wanted the servant to stay in his house for 10 days so he could get to know him and trust him before he released his daughter to go marry a distant relative, but the servant needed an answer THEN. They asked Rebekah if she would go THEN and she she said, yes.
How about us? Are we willing to "water" the least, step out in faith and abandon all to follow the Holy Spirit? I wonder what she thought the whole way back to meet Isaac. Was she afraid of what he might look like or treat her? It doesn't say, but when she saw Isaac from a distance she got off the camel to meet him. It was not a disappointment. Isaac brought her into the household and loved her deeply and she was a great comfort to him. God is calling us to a "new land" this year and do something we have never had the faith to do. Test God's Word because it doesn't return void, but it accomplishes all it is sent to accomplish.
Lord, we want to be brought into the deep intimacy with you where you love us deeply and we are a great comfort to you. Give us faith to reach out into the unknown and trust Your Word.