This is the beginning of the calling of God's people. This is where the story really begins (more about the Genesis 1-11 prologue some other time). And the story begins like this: God desires to bein covenant relationship with humanity. And God picks one person to start the particular story we find ourselves in, and God says: you are blessed, you and all your heirs, for a purpose. And that purpose is to be a blessing to the world.The LORD said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."
So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him.
--Genesis 12: 1-4
All too often we get it backward. We'd rather say that God blesses us so that we'll feel good, or that God will bless us so that we get ahead financially, or that we'll be safe, or that we'll be unafraid, or that we won't get sick... we tend, in short, to be inwardly focused. But God's mission has always been outward, not inward.
I, personally, have been blessed almost beyond my ability to write it down. I'm (mostly) healthy, I have a loving family, I live in an embarrassingly large house, I've earned three (!) university degrees, and I'm among the top 0.33% of the richest people in the world. And I could go on and on.
That blessing has a purpose: I am supposed to be a blessing to the world.
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