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In May 2017, Colin travelled to The Philippines to observe the work of Compassion with a small group of Sydney ministers and church leaders  After spending 3 days in Cebu City, he was asked to give a morning devotion on Genesis 12:1-3, the account of God's call and covenant with Abraham. What follows is what Colin came up with.


He climbed aboard a yellow painted PacMan jeepney.
Somewhere in the steamy, asphalt of a creeping, beeping, weaving, heaving Philippine city
Paid his fare, passed passenger-to-passenger, forward to the driver, who changes gear, tossed the coins in a tray on the dashboard and a grimy five peso piece goes hand-to-hand, back into the pocket of the patriarch of Israel.
Abraham is riding the streets of Cebu City.

He's taking it all in—the smells, the smoke, the mangled, tangled spaghetti of wire, water pipe and lives.
Somehow, commerce, current and water flow, stall and shop open and close…
Selling, buying, laughing, crying, singing, sleeping, living, dying.

He climbs out the back, down the step onto the cracked pavement islands in puddles of grim, grey ink.
Lorega.  Town in the tombs.  A distillation of desperation, destitution, dilapidation.
He steps off the street, down the alley, into the belly of the beast.

It's midday and the summer sun is high but down here, among the shanty madness, there's gloom that sucks light dry.  
Open doors to darkness, past the busy, the beautiful, the aimless, the nameless, the curious, the captive.

He steps into courtyard glare.  
A crumbled basketball court, open drains, sad, flaccid washing, cooking, timber and tarp.  
Doors, windows, dog and chicken, family, community—threadbare, tattered, waiting to topple, all hanging like that cage on the rooftop…
Off its hapless, hopeless, rusting hinges.
It's humid, steamy, sticky.
Eyes beyond tears replaced by salty tears of sweat that roll down neck and back and brow.
There's no sobbing but every single body…
…is weeping.

Abraham is looking for someone.
He knows they're here.  Israel's father hasn't been sent on a fool's errand.
He doesn't mind some searching.  He knows how well a search can end.
It's a patient, seeking hand that found him, all those years ago.
Far away from here.  Far from lack.  Far from hope.
Far from Yahweh.

But Yahweh found Abraham and now it's Abraham's turn to search.  He's on covenant business for his Master.  Here.  In this place.  And…

There.  He sees.  That's him—under a plastic sheet, a low timber platform with blankets, plates, a pot or two.  It's no house, but that's a home.  His home.  Dave.
Yahweh is a finding God.
He found me thinks Abraham.  And now he's found Dave.

Shaded from the afternoon heat, you'd think he might be dozing.  But he's not.
He's deep in conversation.  An inside, holy conversation with his Maker.
In that fragile, feeble, skin-of-its-teeth place, God replies.
With the whisper of Father Abraham, who's leant in close.  The old man's got a message for that black haired, brown-skinned boy.

Dave's not startled as Abraham speaks.  His eyes are open, fixed, as if they're listening, too.

Go from your shanty.  Go from futility.  Go from this hard world's hollow promise.  I'll take you to a better land.
I'll make you part of a great nation that no flood can wash away, no typhoon can blow apart, no earthquake can shake to rubble.
Your blessers I'll bless and your cursers I'll curse.
You'll bear Yahweh's Name, God's great, matchless Name.
You will know His blessing.  Restoration, transformation, salvation.
Yahweh is for you.  Yahweh has good in store for you.  Beyond your wildest dreams.

Abraham's promise is alive in this place.  It's found its way here, through generations, through the dust of Palestine, through the pain of the slain Son on Golgotha's cross, through the empty tomb of the risen, living Jesus.
All the way, start to finish, by faith.  From Abraham to…
Dave.
Nothing stops God's promise.  Nothing unravels God's righteousness.
Not distance or time, not pride or poverty.

Abraham smiles—he's been there.  The boy is hanging on every word.  One final whisper:
"Welcome to the family, my son."
Then Abraham's work is done.

As he steps into the shaded alleyway, he looks back.  He's hoping to look into the boy's eyes,
But Dave's eyes are fixed on another.  Fixed on Jesus.
Abraham smiles again.  It's all going according to plan.  Yahweh's got this.
After all these years, the power of that promise still fills him with stunned delight.

He turns and heads north.  He's searching again, as a sinking orange sun washes Cebu City in rusting light.  High above, one by one, like diamonds in the sky, Abraham's children rise in a covenant constellation no one can number.


DISCLAIMER This a piece of creative writing, set in a real place using the imaginary arrival of Abraham to signify the presence of God’s covenant to Abraham—fulfilled in Christ—as a living, life-changing reality in the slums of Cebu City.  New life actually comes with the whisper not of Abraham, but with the call of the gospel, made effectual by the call of God’s Holy Spirit.  That said, I still reckon Abraham would get a serious kick out of seeing the worldwide wildfire of redemption by faith that was started with the Genesis 12 covenant spark in the desert…

Photos: Jonathan E. Shaw (head), Adam Cohn (body); flickr

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