Our beautiful Estes Park house has sold. We’re packing up out things for a move down to south Denver.

We’ve ordered boxes and wrapping sheets, bubble wrap, tape.

We’ve made all the necessary small repairs, spackled all the holes where our family photos once hung, reserved a moving truck.

I was thinking the other day how complicated it is nowadays to move.

Wouldn’t it be great to just pull up stakes—literally—like Abraham and move on out?

But then I opened to Genesis and read about how wealthy Abraham was. Wealth in those ancient days was measured in livestock, of which Abraham had plenty.

It wasn’t a simple affair to move. Abraham had to consider the needs of the household members: wife, children, servants, tents and supplies.

He also had to consider how to move thousands of animals to places along the way where there was food and water and shelter. Someone had to go on ahead and scout appropriate areas. And Abraham would have had to get permission to move his herds and people across someone else’s land.

There were tribal laws to obey, treaties to make, tolls to pay. And his servants and hired workers would also have had to be able to defend themselves in case some hostile tribe decided to attack.

There were no Marriotts along the way. No comfy beds and clean bathrooms where Sarah could shower away the day’s dusty, dirty, sun-scorching move.

What faith on Abraham’s part to make such a monumental move.

But the Netherton move is also a move of faith. We do not know the people in our new neighborhood. We haven’t yet found a new church. We’ll be renting for at least a year. That will feel strange. Bruce won’t be telecommuting anymore. We’ll both have to get used to his commute to work.

And we’ll miss our dear friends at church and our neighbors.

I’m praying that our move turns out to be a wonderful opportunity to follow the Lord through an uncharted (for us) future.

“So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord.” (Gen. 13: 18 NIV Bible)