One thing I admire in Abraham is the courage with which he followed God’s call. In the beginning, he was asked to leave his family and travel into a strange land. He did not know what lay ahead of him. He simply followed God’s call. It was the same at every step of his life: he followed God, trusting in him-not knowing where the journey would lead him.

God’s call always comes to a man or a woman in this way. At times he asks us to do something that seems quite impossible to us (a son to be born in the old age of Abraham and Sarah). God wants us to trust in Him—simply to follow, one step at a time.

If I can follow God, my loving Father, with the faith and trust of Abraham a wonderful new land with a wonderful new life for me and my family is certain. God himself promises me this.

 THE JEWS IN SLAVERY

God’s call to a person is the certain promise of a rich new life. But it does not mean that there will not be trials and difficulties on the way.

Abraham’s descendants over the centuries grew into the Jewish people. They lived in the territory of Egypt , and as they grew more and more numerous, a certain Egyptian King saw them as a threat and danger to himself. So he took away their freedom and brought them great suffering. They lived in slavery and forced labour.

The persecution and trial of God’s chosen people grew worse and worse. But God had not forgotten them. He prepared a young man called Moses, who was to be the Gandhiji of the Jews.

One day Moses was minding sheep in the fields and had a very strange experience which the Bible records:.

Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God . There an angel of the Lord appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush. As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not burnt up. So Moses decided, `I must go over to look at his remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned’.

“When the Lord saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush, `Moses Moses’. He answered, `Here I am.’ God said, `Come no nearer; remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I am the God of your father,’ he continued, `the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob’. Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. But the Lord said, `I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering. Therefore, I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of the land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey,…So indeed the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have truly noted that the Egyptians are oppressing them. Come, now I will send you to Pharaoh to lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt .”

“But Moses said to God, `who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and lead the Israelites out of Egypt ?” He answered, `I will be with you”. (Ex. 3, 1-12)