Jehovah speaks to Abram to leave the land, Charan, and his kindred and the house of his father and to go where Jehovah shows him and Abram obeys.

When Abram passes over the land and comes to Shechem, to the oak of Mamre and the Canaanite is then in the land, Jehovah appears to him. This is the first instance of God appearing to a person on the earth since he walked in the garden of Eden with the one 'of the earth'. This I see as a relationship of increasing closeness.

But Abram does not trust Jehovah to keep him safe in Egypt. Fear is the maker of division between us and our God. Perfect love casts out all fear so we have to learn to love God, to know God, more and more so that there is no place for fear in our lives and we will not make wrong decisions because of fear. Instead we will ask God and listen to God for what we should do.

I had a conversation with God once about insuring a large building that I had taken on at his instruction. I asked God if I should insure the building. He asked me what I wanted to do. I replied, "To trust you, Lord" and God said, "I want that too." Then I panicked a little and started to envisage all the problems which could come against this building, "But Lord, what of all the things that could happen?" and I heard God say, "What is that to you. You are to trust me."

I recently worried on a long journey about snow preventing me from getting back to my home and God had prompted me to stop at a place to stay but I decided to press on to get home in case I got held up in that place by further snow. I missed an opportunity to visit people in that place who God put in my heart to visit and the next day there was no further snow, despite the weather warnings the night before. In fact the temperature rose considerably that day. My journey the night before, after I made my decision, was very slow and difficult with driving snow and very poor visibility and the lines on the motorway hidden by snow so what I experienced was a worrying, slow and tiring end to my journey. I also was pained by a great regret that I had not made the visit that God wanted me to make and I also wanted, especially for reasons of reconciliation, to make.