God introduces himself to Abram by reawakening a dream that was in danger of never happening. When was the last time you heard a high street evangelist calling out to passing people to follow the God who awakens dreams?
Abram is already three quarters of the way from Ur to Canaan, and living in Haran, when God calls him in Genesis. And yet, through Joshua and Stephen, God later claims credit for Abram leaving Ur.
Joshua said to the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors, including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River, and they worshiped other gods. But I took your ancestor Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him into the land of Canaan. I gave him many descendants through his son Isaac."
— Joshua 24:2-3 NLT
And when Stephen is speaking to the high council in Acts, he says this about Abram.
"Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran. God told him, 'Leave your native land and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.' So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died. Then God brought him here to the land where you now live."
— Stephen in Acts 7:2-4 NLT
According to Joshua, God "took" Abraham from Ur, the land beyond the Euphrates River. While Stephen claims that “God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran.”
Neither statement is accurate according to the biblical text as we have it in Genesis 11 and 12. The author of Genesis never states or implies God is involved before calling Abram in Haran in Genesis 12:1. God is not even mentioned in Abram's story until that point.
So what are these passages saying?
The only way these two passages make sense is if God is responsible for the birthing of people's dreams. In the book of Joshua, God is saying he planted the dream of Canaan into Terah’s spirit, so when Terah took Abram (Gen. 11:31), God can also say he took Abram, too (Josh. 24:3).
Whereas Stephen takes this a step further. He's saying that God "appears" somehow to Abram as he dreams about leaving Ur and one day having children with Sarai. Therefore, Abram was following God’s call before he even realised that's what he was doing.
God restores people's dreams because he is the one who births those dreams within us. Unbeknownst to Terah and Abram—who "worshipped other gods" (Josh. 24:2)—and maybe unbeknownst to us, is that God is the great encourager of our dreams.
Why?
The seven promises that follow God's calling of Abram hint at why pursuing our dreams are so important.
