BLBS group - well, Cookie, if my research is correct, you are currently 5 hours ahead of us as you celebrate 30 years of wedded bliss in LONDON! I can't stop smiling ear to ear for you and the wonderful travel gift Gary surprised you with!! - - - And thinking along the lines of wedded bliss, I can't help but wonder how Sarai felt being passed off as a sister, later to become the Egyptian king's wife - - - would she have been happy that her husband Abram was still alive? Or hurt that Abram saved himself and had such little regard for her as his wife? I think I would have been very confused or angry if I was Sarai...... And let's think a minute about Abram - he displayed INCREDIBLE faith when God called him to leave his country, relatives, father's family and go to a land God would show him. Not much detail, but Abram still obeyed..... so what happened to this faith and trust? How could Abram so easily follow God only to later question that He would provide? Maybe he was travel-weary, maybe his age was affecting his decision-making abilities.... 5 lessons to be learned from this chapter were noted in another resource tool that I found helpful to "break it down" into little tidbits of wisdom:
1. When God promises the "ends" He also provides the means
2. Our faith fails because our God is too small - increase faith by learning the Greatness of GOD
3. God never puts us ina situation where we must sin
4. There are no short-cuts to godliness - God designs the tests of life to DEVELOP our faith, not destroy it
5. When our faith fails.... God doesn't.
Cookie - thank you for putting so much time and effort in mentoring us. I echo Cindy's comment - you deserve a rest too, so whenever you would like to "pause" and allow us to review what we have learned thus far, that's great!!!

I also appreciated the week of rest. First, thanks Cindy for your thought provoking comment on capital punishment in the last lesson. I have troubled about that but your reference to "man" and the imperfect nature of man causing innoncent men to be found guilty shed a different light on the topic.

Now to this week. I am trying to piece together why Terah took the family out of the country and how or if that fits with Abram's call. Here is what I found: Acts says God appeared to Abraham in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. Genesis says Terah became a father at 70 years old, took Abram and others to Canaan but stopped at Haran, and died at 205 years old. Chapter 12 says Abram left Haran when he was 75 years old. The assumption has to be that God spoke to Abram while in Mesopotamia but not sure why Genesis doesn't say that and lead us to believe Terah left on his own accord. Obviously, Abram left Haran before Terah died. Not a critical point but interesting as we move along.