We are facing a rapidly changing world this year, and we have to make a choice: do we walk by faith, or do we walk by sight? The story of Abraham gives us the big picture, like an epic film, of the “friend of God” who  “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3), but against that backdrop there a chapter in the story that gives us some particularly helpful detail about what it means to follow in Abraham’s footsteps. It is the section in the narrative that covers the parting of the ways between Abraham and Lot after he had left Egypt, and we find it in Genesis 13. Here is the full chapter, from the NIV, and a few thoughts on the main elements as I see them:

“ So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. ² Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

³ From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier ⁴ and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.

⁵ Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. ⁶ 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. ⁷ And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.

⁸ 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. ⁹ 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.”

¹⁰ 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.) ¹¹ So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: ¹² Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. ¹³ Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.

¹⁴ The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. ¹⁵ All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring^[a] forever. ¹⁶ I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. ¹⁷ Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

¹⁸ So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord.”

Abraham had been in Egypt. The Egypt of Abraham’s time was a great kingdom, far more extensive than the Egypt of today, and its riches had to be a huge draw – just like today’s big cities – for anyone wandering in the desert. God had just told Abraham at the beginning of his journey to “go to a land that I will show you,” and who knows: maybe he thought, again like so many today, that his promised land in the time of famine lay within Egypt’s land of plenty. But whatever it was that drew him to Egypt and could have ended the marriage that was to produce the seed of his legacy, he returned to the place of his first altar to the Lord and “called on the name of the Lord.” He returned to the place of worship. There he made a pivotal choice:

 “Let’s not have any quarrelling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. ⁹ 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.”

Abraham didn’t choose to stay within the borders of Canaan; he chose to stay in the place of peace. And in addition, he didn’t claim seniority as he would have been entitled to, but he gave the choice of territory to his nephew. At the very beginning of the Bible’s primary illustration of faith in action, the main protagonist anticipated the teachings of Christ and lay down his life for his friend. “You choose,” he said.

So “Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered… (and) chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east.”

The key words here are “Lot looked around and saw” and “chose for himself.” Lot walked by sight and acted out of self-interest to choose the land that was most appealing to his flesh. Not only was it “like the garden of the Lord,” it was “like the land of Egypt,” where he had just been. Abraham had left his past behind when he journeyed from Haran, and turned his back on the flesh when he watched Lot depart for the cities that were soon to come under God’s judgement. With his spirit set free Abraham faces the future, and it is only now that God begins to spell out the details of His astounding promise:

“¹⁴ The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. ¹⁵ All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring^[a] forever. ¹⁶ I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.”

When we stand in the place of worship, when we “seek peace and pursue it,” when we act in love, when we part company with the flesh, and when we are free of our past, God will speak His into our lives the promises that will shape our destiny. But with the promise also comes an instruction:

“¹⁷ Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

It wasn’t enough for Abraham to stay by the altar and thank God for His kind words: He had to physically walk through the extent of the land he had been given. How do we walk through the length and breadth of our own promised lands? Generally, it is by prayer. There are times when it is appropriate to physically “prayer walk” through territories that we believe God has promised us, but for these “prayer walks” to be fruitful they need to be as the Spirit has guided. And spiritual territories can definitely have geographical boundaries: before I came to Christ I published a local New Age magazine in the area of Stroud, UK. On the cover of the magazine was a map of the area I wanted to cover. Unknown to me, that map coincided exactly with the “territory” of a church in Stroud. They came across my magazine, and began to pray for me – which I only discovered when I met a member of that church years later. Within a year I had met Jesus.  Stroud Christian Fellowship actively walked through the length and breadth of their land, they found me on the way, and some of the fruit of their prayers is the fact that you are reading this some 40 years later.

Paul wrote: “For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith” (Gal 5:5) Abraham’s faith was “accredited to him as righteousness.” He “waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” (Heb 11:10) God will judge Sodom and Gomorrah today just as He did in the time of Abraham, and I personally believe that some of the natural disasters that we are seeing in increasing frequency today are the “beginning of signs” of that judgement. Are we walking by the Spirit in the land of the promises that God has given to us in our place of peace, love and worship, or are our eyes and our flesh drawn to the provision of Egypt that looks promising and safe, but will not last?

Lot finished his journey in a cave; Abraham’s journey continues in us today. As He did through Moses, the Holy Spirit says to us in 2025: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life” (Deut. 30:19)