{"id":40327,"date":"2026-09-04T02:05:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T02:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldchallenge.kinsta.cloud\/devotion\/settlers-2\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T02:05:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T02:05:48","slug":"settlers-2","status":"publish","type":"devotion","link":"https:\/\/worldchallenge.kinsta.cloud\/it\/devotion\/settlers-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Settlers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTerah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram\u2019s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there\u201d (Genesis 11:31, ESV)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what kind of man Terah was, since very little has been written about him. We do know that Ur of Chaldeans was kind of an up-and-coming place. It was a place where prosperity had just begun to sweep through the land.<\/p>\n

Abram was born in this land that was becoming wealthy. It was a land with a great future and great promise that it would have been a good place to live. For some reason, Abram\u2019s father decided he needed to leave. We don\u2019t know if it was because of an ambition to go somewhere new or to build something new.<\/p>\n

Genesis says, \u201cTerah took\u201d, and \u201ctook\u201d in the Hebrew means \u201cto grasp.\u201d It was kind of a gritting of the teeth and a clenching of the fist and saying, \u201cI will take hold of my future. I will make my future what I want it to be.\u201d There is something very dangerous in that. There was no indication that God had given him a promise about the land of Canaan, but instead he had this self-ambition. The outcome of this grasping kind of lifestyle is always the second word we will see in this passage \u201cthey settled there.\u201d For some reason when Terah got to Haran, he just paused\u2026and then he settled.<\/p>\n

Have you ever done that? \u201cThe journey is too much for me. The pressure, the intensity, always having to try to push this stone up a hill.\u201d Whenever you start something in the flesh, you end up doing what Terah did. He settled. There is no worse way to spend your life than settling for mediocrity. Nothing is further from God\u2019s agenda for your life than for you to start on a journey and all of a sudden give up.<\/p>\n

Whenever we start grasping for ourselves, taking for ourselves, trying to become rich, trying to become famous, trying to become successful in our own energy\u2014we will always end up \u201csettling.\u201d Why? Because you\u2019re only halfway to where you set out to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you\u201d (Matthew 6:33)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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