When God says go
The two parts to God’s ‘go’ are going from and going to. Ur, Abram’s home, was considered the place to be. All the trading wealth from around the Mediterranean had to travel through Ur in ancient Mesopotamia. It was a place of immense affluence, trade, education, and technology. Civilisation can be considered to have begun there because it was the place the first legal code was written down.
So, it would have been a hard place to leave—especially if you were going to Canaan. Canaan was unsophisticated, unrefined, and underdeveloped. No one who had enough money to live in Ur, the great centre of refinement and progress, would move to Canaan. Here is the point: you must trust God with your future when the path He has called you to take doesn’t look like the obvious one. But if you’re willing to go, you will discover that God has blessings in mind you never dreamed of.
He told Abram, ‘I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (Genesis 12:2–3 NKJV) The reward God gives you will always be greater than any sacrifice He calls you to make. Has God called you to go, but you want to stay? Is He telling you to stay, but you want to go? Here is the score: if you obey God, you will never regret it. And that’s a guarantee!