This is from an email I got from someone...

I got inspired to do something I wouldn't normally do today. Brian had a
good message about following our calling from God, and he talked about
how some things happen in our life that leads us to where he wants us to
be for in the future. He used examples in scripture that helped me see
the reality of what a calling can really be. One example that stood out
to me is in Genesis starting in 11:28 - "While his father Terah was
still alive, Haran(who was Abraham's brother) died in Ur of Chaldeans,
in the land of his birth."

There is also the passage a few sentences down in 11:31 - "Terah took
his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law
Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of
the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled
there."

I was wandering where he was going with this, and then he really brought
it to real life. The first point is that Abraham's brother died. I don't
have a brother, but I do have a sister and it would be aweful if she
were to die. Any death of a family member can be really hard, especially
back in those days. Then, people grew up and lived with their families.
They worked together, ate together, went through hardships together,
etc...

That kind of goes along with the second point. People didn't move away
that much. They found land, built their homes there and settled there
typically for generations. The second passage mentioned says that they
moved. So for Abram, this had to be a real tough time. He just lost a
brother who I think he would've been real close to, AND he had to move
which was much harder than it is today. He had to have been stessed to
some degree.

Then, here comes the twist. In Genesis 15:7 - He also said to him, "I am
the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this
land to take possession of it."

I did the math by the age of Terah, and unless scripture skips anything,
they stayed there 130 before the Lord called Abram directly to leave.
The point is this;

While Abram lost his brother
and moved away from home,
the Lord was working in his life
setting up victory down the road!

That is inpiring!

It made things seem real to me, like even though I can't see or hear God
directly, He's working in my life preparing the way for my future. This
has motivated me to create a.....well......I don't know what to call it.
Sort of like a spiritual journal or autobiography of my life to
basically trace all the ways God has worked in my life, and also how he
has set me up for things that were to come. Now, I'm not talking about a
365 page novel here, but just a way of sorting some things out and
helping me to see how God has worked in my life. And believe me, I've
got A LOT of mistakes I need to sort out.

It's hard sometimes to really see what God has done for you. It's easy
to say that He has done a lot without seeing the big picture. Sure I've
got food in the cabinet, clothes on my back, and gas in my car. God has
given me that. But what about allowing me to be horrible at handling
money years ago, being stuck with a roomate who wouldn't pay for
anything, getting evicted from our apartment and ruining my credit so
that years down the road I would know the importance of being smart,
responsible, and disciplined with money so that I can be the leader of
my family in order to keep us financially stable? How about that for a
calling?!

Those are the types of things I want to think about and sort out because
I know that will make me appreciate the good AND the bad times in my
life and help me make since of a lot of things. We've got to know what
God has done in our lives in order to understand how He's working in our
lives.