We can begin to settle for places that aren’t God’s best. God hadn’t called Terah to go to the Promised Land. He’d called Abraham to go, but Terah came to this place. Remember, Terah died at 205 years old, so this journey could have been a little tough for Terah and he gets to this place and something happened. The name of this place, Haran means actually mountaineer or parched.
Here’s what I believe happened. I believe Terah came to this place and he began to dry up and die. His son’s passing became a mountain in his life that he could not get past. He named this place. He ran after his son because he was saying, I can’t go any further. The pain of losing his son had become too much and he didn’t want to go any further, Mt. Carmel Illinois Church.
Mountains in Our LIves
He just began to dwell there and that’s the problem. Our hopes can dry up around mountainous circumstances in our lives. Do you have any hopes or dreams that have died in disappointment? We all have our Haran’s that we have to deal with in our lives.
Our issues, our disappointments are things that have gone wrong. Things that have happened in her life, maybe happened to us, or happen through us, and if we’re not careful, that can end up being the place that we stop. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church Notice what it says, they begin to dwell in Haran. So the days of Terah were 205 years and Terah died in Haran. He died there. Then chapter 12 verse 4 says, “So Abraham departed as the Lord spoke to him, had spoken to him and Lot went with him.”
Abraham didn’t depart until his dad died, until that thing happened that was holding him back. I believe there’s places that we are dwelling that we should have departed. Haran was on the route. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church They had to go through there, but it wasn’t where they were supposed to stay. It wasn’t where they were supposed to live.
They settled there. They were dwelling in a place they were supposed to depart. Abraham was not able to depart there until his dad, the thing that was holding him back, the thing that he would not leave, and the thing that he would not put in the back of his life.
He would not put it there. So now that very thing became what was holding him back, and sometimes in our life the things we will walk away from caused us to stop short of where God wants us to go. Are we dwelling places where God told us to depart? Mt. Carmel Illinois Church There could be a lot of issues. Let me give you a couple, Mt. Carmel Illinois Church.
Getting Stuck in Offense and Tragedy
Sometimes we get stuck in offenses. Sometimes we get stuck in tragedy. Amy’s story is so powerful. We all have a Haran. They’re all different levels. I don’t know what your horizon is. I don’t know what you’ve been through. It could be a small thing.
It could be a major thing. It could be a life changing thing. It could be something that somebody said to you. It could be something that a spouse did to you. It could be a divorce. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church I don’t know what it is, but we all have these Haran’s that God said you’re going to have to walk through that. I don’t want you to dwell there. I want you to stay there. I’ve called you to depart from it. The Bible says, “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
God does promises. We won’t have a Haran. He just says, I don’t want you to dwell there. I want you to depart and here’s what I felt like God said. So once you tell them, no matter what their Haran is, it’s time to depart. It’s time to depart. It’s time to move on. It’s time to leave that in the past. Sometimes we can’t even depart from the Haran’s of what we’ve done ourselves. Like we’re the worst to forgive ourselves. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church We’re the worst critic for ourselves, like I don’t deserve it, so I can’t do it, Mt. Carmel Illinois Church.
Taking Detours & Getting Stuck
God said, “Hey, it’s time to move forward. It’s time to be healed. It’s time to let that go.” What they said, what they did. So his invitation to you and me today is will you depart from your Haran? Would you depart from your place of disappointment?
Will you detour from what was said about you, or what you’ve done or what someone else did to you? Mt. Carmel Illinois Church There’s a promise thing that God wants you to go to, but we’ve got to leave some things behind. So here’s how, ask the Lord how he wants you to do it.
I just want you to offer an opportunity for anyone who’s stuck. You’re stuck somewhere you don’t want to be and you don’t know how to get out. Maybe it’s a mental stuff. Maybe it’s an emotional thing. Maybe it’s something that happened in your past, something tragic, something minor, something major, I don’t know. But it’s something that happened that has come to define your existence.
No one’s making smaller. What happens? No one’s saying it’s insignificant. God is just saying, I have called you to walk through that. I will give you the strength to walk through that. I didn’t ask you to dwell there. I asked you to depart from there. So from our Haran’s today, it’s time to depart. Mt. Carmel Illinois Church It’s time to leave the divorce in the rear view mirror, it is time to move forward it is time to leave. What happened to you? It’s, I believe, that tragedy.
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