Walking away from everything he had, Ram left his home with only the clothes on his back to an unknown future. He had chosen Christ.
In God’s mercy and grace, Ram ended up in one of our Bible colleges with the determination to prepare himself to become a servant of God. This is where I met him and heard of his tremendous and difficult testimony. When asked if he regretted leaving his family and wealth behind, he gently responded with absolute confidence and humility, “They can have the whole wide world. All I want is my Jesus.”
He went on to explain about the pain and sadness in his life when he thinks about his parents and sister he left behind. But he said, “My greatest sorrow is that they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ the way I know Him. If they knew Him and could see His face, they too would walk away from everyone and everything else. That’s the price that must be paid to know Jesus and to be His.”
Ram’s story reminds us a lot of the life of Abraham, who, having heard the voice of God, left his home and all familiar circumstances in Ur of the Chaldeans to follow his God.
Many people, when they hear the name “Abraham,” immediately think of “father of many nations” or how, in a miraculous manner, he and his wife, Sarah conceived Isaac in their old age. And of course, it is impossible to forget about his incredible act of obedience as he prepared to sacrifice the son of promise. What a man Abraham was! Our minds easily classify him as a saint, and rightly so. But what makes all of this even greater is the fact that Abraham was nothing special. He was an ordinary man just like you and I. Raised in an idolatrous home, Abraham grew up knowing nothing about the living God. In between the stories of the incredible things that happened in his life, you’ll see a man who was fearful and weak, lying to protect himself and his family. Abraham was no superstar.
Yet the living God called Abraham to come and walk with Him, inviting him to enter into a covenant and to know Him. “Now the LORD had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing’ ” (Genesis 12:1–2).
And when all was said and done, Abraham was blessed and called a “friend of God” (James 2:23). If Abraham was just an ordinary man, how was it that he became a friend of God? It is friendship with the Almighty, intimacy with Him that was the true blessing in Abraham’s life.