Transcript:
Hi there, my name is Jeff Arthur with The Values Conversation, here today to talk to you about going through the Bible and talking about Abraham and his nephew Lot. This is found in Genesis Chapter 13, but what was interesting is that Abraham was one of … At that time he was known as Abram … but Abraham was one of the wealthiest men there was. And wealth then was about herds and about flock and about all the different animals that he owned. And he had hundreds of herdsmen, he had hundreds of people working for him on his ranch, even though it was nomadic and he was traveling.
But by the time he got to the land that God promised him, he’d brought his family, which again was hundreds of people, I mean you got to factor hundred to hundreds of people on this nomadic voyage. One of the people he brought was his nephew, a guy by the name of Lot, L-O-T. And Lot’s herdsmen were fighting with Abraham’s herdsmen, because there wasn’t enough land and there wasn’t enough food and limited resources for water and so on. And so Abraham came to Lot and he said you know what, we’ve gotten where we need to be, let’s divide up, let’s separate, your people, you go one way, you go another way, and they’re up on a mountain and he’s looking over the Jordan Valley, looking over Israel, and he says, you pick wherever you go and I’ll go the opposite direction.
Well, one way was desert. The other way was this lush valley, beautiful, along the Jordan River. And so Lot says, boy, I’ll take the best of the best, I’ll take the pick of the lot, I want the valley. Okay. Abraham went the other direction. Lot picked the best. And it put him in a horrific situation, which we’re going to talk about over the next couple of weeks. And I say all that to say simply this. Sometimes it’s smart to recognize that the best looking isn’t always the best for us. And the one that is most appealing to us, may not be the best thing that could happen with us or for us.
We need to investigate farther, we need to talk to God more about it, we need to seek God’s counsel on those decisions and to recognize that whenever we become selfish and say, well, I’ll take the best, sometimes that’s not always the best thing for us. Seek the counsel of the Lord.
My name is Jeff Arthur with The Value Conversation. You can find out more about us online at tvcleadership.com.