Taking the easy path
This week is on Genesis 13:5-13:
I read these verses and was struck by how similar they are to Cain and Abel's division of work. Cain had chosen farming while Abel had chosen herding, which is a more difficult thing. A farmer stays put, tends crops that stay put, and walls in his crop to keep the evil deer from eating every last thing he slaved away at growing. There are risks to his trade, but not as many as for the shepherd.
The shepherd doesn't stay in one place. He's always on the move to make sure that his flock has food and water. His flock doesn't stay put, and if he isn't watching, they'll wander off. The sorts of animals that try to poach a shepherd's crop are a lot more fierce than those that eat a farmer's tomatoes, so the shepherd has to be a warrior too. The sort of creature that can kill a sheep is likely to be able to kill a man too. There are no walls around a shepherd's flock. He has to be vigilant.
Abram and Lot were both shepherds. They'd left their homeland and gone out on an adventure. They became rich, but when you're a shepherd your possessions need to be fed, so there is such a thing as being too rich. Abram and Lot were too "rich" to live in the same pasture land so they had to part ways. As the eldest, Abram had rights to first pick, but such was his trust in God's plan that he let Lot choose.
Lot looked and chose what was easy. The land near Sodom was lush and green and well watered. And it was near to where he was. Lot was set for life. Abram had to leave and go find more difficult pastures for his flock.
If you flip ahead in the book, you see that with easy living comes some big risks. Lot gets caught in the middle of a war between Sodom and some other nations. By this point, he's moved into Sodom. Those nations sweep through, and amidst the "shock and awe" there is a lot of pillaging. Lot is taken as a captive, likely intended as a slave, and his possessions are carried off. Abram has to gather his army and go and rescue Lot.
Flipping further along, we see what happens when God sends his angels to destroy Sodom. Lot seems to have given up the shepherd lifestyle entirely, because instead of living in a tent amidst his flock, he's living in town, in a house that's got a door on it. A mob has gathered outside of his house and is trying to bully and rape the men (angels) who have come to stay with him. Always a thoughtful host, Lot offers to let the mob rape his two virgin daughters, if it means his house guests are left alone. Are these the sorts of problems a shepherd has? If Abram had kids, is this something he would have been dealing with as well?
While it's possible there's something about the life of a shepherd that prepares people for understanding God or hearing his voice, what I want to look at is how the easy path isn't always the best path. (And for those of you who failed logic in school, that doesn't automatically mean that the hard path is the best path.) I think any of us probably would have picked the same locale as Lot did, given the choice.
But don't we sometimes pick the "easy" option only to find out that it's difficult? Maybe we pick a high paying job, only to find that it leaves us no time for church and family. Or maybe we buy the reliable car, and it puts us in debt. Maybe we choose not to hang out with the difficult people. Maybe we stick with easy friends, only to find later that we have no deep friendships. Maybe the spacious inexpensive house is right down the street from a crack den. Maybe the tropical paradise comes with an Ebola epidemic, or an Islamist coup.
Lot chose the paradise in front of him, but didn't consider what was next door to paradise. He saw the green grass and flowing water and made his decision immediately. But right down the road was Sodom, a den of iniquity and a magnet for armed conflict. It was a trap! By the time he'd gotten out, he'd lost his wife and his sons in law. He fell deep into alcoholism and his family was plagued by incest and isolation. Abraham, by comparison went from success to success.
Things probably seemed like they were going really well at first, but I wonder what Lot was thinking when he decided to stop shepherding and move to town. Maybe city living was even easier than easy shepherding? I also wonder what he was thinking when the armies swept through and sacked the place. Did he realize he might have made a mistake? Or when Abram rescued him from captivity and he decided to move back into town again. Did it embolden him to repeat his mistake? Or, finally, when he was outside his house facing down the depraved mob: What made him think that offering his daughters up to a rape crew was his best option?
How do you go from easy living to fleeing for your life as your whole world gets destroyed? It doesn't always happen overnight. I'm sure there were plenty of days for Lot where it seemed like things were going great and that he'd made the right choice. Unfortunately, the path he chose started with complacency and led to him embracing depravity rather than fleeing from it. It was only God's love for Abram that saved Lot from the certain destruction of his fellow citizens. He wasn't any more righteous than them, by any measure!
Abram took the difficult path of leaving his homeland and the difficult path of going off into uncharted territory instead of staying in the green valley. He took the difficult path of putting himself at risk to face down an army so that he could rescue his nephew Lot from the fruit of his own bad decisions. He didn't do those things just because they were difficult. He did the difficult things because they were the right things to do. So we can contrast his life with Lot's and see what righteousness looks like.
Do we choose the righteous path or the easy one? Do we put ourselves and our loved ones at risk by coveting luxury? Do we live in the shadow of depravity and do nothing to move away from it? Do we give up our adventure and independence to surround ourselves with depraved and self-ambitious people for the false security of their protection? Are we willing to sacrifice our own children so that we can be tolerant of the depravity that surrounds us? So that we can be seen as team players? So that we can go back to living in peace when the crisis passes?
Make sure you're making the right decisions in your life, easy or difficult. You don't want to end up broken like Lot.
Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.
So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”
Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.
I read these verses and was struck by how similar they are to Cain and Abel's division of work. Cain had chosen farming while Abel had chosen herding, which is a more difficult thing. A farmer stays put, tends crops that stay put, and walls in his crop to keep the evil deer from eating every last thing he slaved away at growing. There are risks to his trade, but not as many as for the shepherd.
The shepherd doesn't stay in one place. He's always on the move to make sure that his flock has food and water. His flock doesn't stay put, and if he isn't watching, they'll wander off. The sorts of animals that try to poach a shepherd's crop are a lot more fierce than those that eat a farmer's tomatoes, so the shepherd has to be a warrior too. The sort of creature that can kill a sheep is likely to be able to kill a man too. There are no walls around a shepherd's flock. He has to be vigilant.
Abram and Lot were both shepherds. They'd left their homeland and gone out on an adventure. They became rich, but when you're a shepherd your possessions need to be fed, so there is such a thing as being too rich. Abram and Lot were too "rich" to live in the same pasture land so they had to part ways. As the eldest, Abram had rights to first pick, but such was his trust in God's plan that he let Lot choose.
Lot looked and chose what was easy. The land near Sodom was lush and green and well watered. And it was near to where he was. Lot was set for life. Abram had to leave and go find more difficult pastures for his flock.
If you flip ahead in the book, you see that with easy living comes some big risks. Lot gets caught in the middle of a war between Sodom and some other nations. By this point, he's moved into Sodom. Those nations sweep through, and amidst the "shock and awe" there is a lot of pillaging. Lot is taken as a captive, likely intended as a slave, and his possessions are carried off. Abram has to gather his army and go and rescue Lot.
Flipping further along, we see what happens when God sends his angels to destroy Sodom. Lot seems to have given up the shepherd lifestyle entirely, because instead of living in a tent amidst his flock, he's living in town, in a house that's got a door on it. A mob has gathered outside of his house and is trying to bully and rape the men (angels) who have come to stay with him. Always a thoughtful host, Lot offers to let the mob rape his two virgin daughters, if it means his house guests are left alone. Are these the sorts of problems a shepherd has? If Abram had kids, is this something he would have been dealing with as well?
While it's possible there's something about the life of a shepherd that prepares people for understanding God or hearing his voice, what I want to look at is how the easy path isn't always the best path. (And for those of you who failed logic in school, that doesn't automatically mean that the hard path is the best path.) I think any of us probably would have picked the same locale as Lot did, given the choice.
But don't we sometimes pick the "easy" option only to find out that it's difficult? Maybe we pick a high paying job, only to find that it leaves us no time for church and family. Or maybe we buy the reliable car, and it puts us in debt. Maybe we choose not to hang out with the difficult people. Maybe we stick with easy friends, only to find later that we have no deep friendships. Maybe the spacious inexpensive house is right down the street from a crack den. Maybe the tropical paradise comes with an Ebola epidemic, or an Islamist coup.
Lot chose the paradise in front of him, but didn't consider what was next door to paradise. He saw the green grass and flowing water and made his decision immediately. But right down the road was Sodom, a den of iniquity and a magnet for armed conflict. It was a trap! By the time he'd gotten out, he'd lost his wife and his sons in law. He fell deep into alcoholism and his family was plagued by incest and isolation. Abraham, by comparison went from success to success.
Things probably seemed like they were going really well at first, but I wonder what Lot was thinking when he decided to stop shepherding and move to town. Maybe city living was even easier than easy shepherding? I also wonder what he was thinking when the armies swept through and sacked the place. Did he realize he might have made a mistake? Or when Abram rescued him from captivity and he decided to move back into town again. Did it embolden him to repeat his mistake? Or, finally, when he was outside his house facing down the depraved mob: What made him think that offering his daughters up to a rape crew was his best option?
How do you go from easy living to fleeing for your life as your whole world gets destroyed? It doesn't always happen overnight. I'm sure there were plenty of days for Lot where it seemed like things were going great and that he'd made the right choice. Unfortunately, the path he chose started with complacency and led to him embracing depravity rather than fleeing from it. It was only God's love for Abram that saved Lot from the certain destruction of his fellow citizens. He wasn't any more righteous than them, by any measure!
Abram took the difficult path of leaving his homeland and the difficult path of going off into uncharted territory instead of staying in the green valley. He took the difficult path of putting himself at risk to face down an army so that he could rescue his nephew Lot from the fruit of his own bad decisions. He didn't do those things just because they were difficult. He did the difficult things because they were the right things to do. So we can contrast his life with Lot's and see what righteousness looks like.
Do we choose the righteous path or the easy one? Do we put ourselves and our loved ones at risk by coveting luxury? Do we live in the shadow of depravity and do nothing to move away from it? Do we give up our adventure and independence to surround ourselves with depraved and self-ambitious people for the false security of their protection? Are we willing to sacrifice our own children so that we can be tolerant of the depravity that surrounds us? So that we can be seen as team players? So that we can go back to living in peace when the crisis passes?
Make sure you're making the right decisions in your life, easy or difficult. You don't want to end up broken like Lot.
Comments
Post a Comment