God commanded Abraham to leave his homeland and relocate “unto a land that I will shew thee” (Genesis 12:1). This required faith on Abraham’s part—he knew nothing about his new home. But it also put him in a forward-looking posture, focused on what God would give him rather than on what he was giving up.
Soon after he arrived in the land of Canaan, God appeared to him and said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Genesis 12:7). Therefore, even when Abraham left his new home shortly after, moving to Egypt to escape a famine, he had already received a promise which connected his future to that land.
After he and his nephew Lot separated, each settling in a different part of their new home, God reiterated his promise to Abraham:
Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
Genesis 13:14-15
Abraham may have allowed Lot to claim part of the land, but the Lord reiterated his original promise to Abraham: everything he could see, including the beautiful plain of Jordan, would one day belong to his descendants.
He seems to have lived quietly after that, getting along with his neighbors and only joining a war that erupted to rescue his nephew. (See Genesis 14.) Afterwards, God promised again that Abraham’s seed would one day fill the land “from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18).
One effect of these repeated promises was to keep Abraham looking forward, visualizing a desirable future. Most of the narrative occurs after Abraham journeys to the promised land, but the Lord constantly reminds him that the land will belong to his descendants, so that he will make decisions that are appropriate to that expectation. He wants Abraham to live with hope for the future.
Many years later, a descendant of Abraham named Lehi received a commandment from God to leave the city of Jerusalem, leaving “his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things” (1 Nephi 2:4). The reason for the sudden departure was his family’s safety. Some of his fellow-citizens wanted to kill him, and the entire city faced impending destruction from an empire that had already conquered them.
Obediently, he left. But this movement was predictably discouraging for the family. Two of his sons complained that he “had led them out of the land of Jerusalem, to leave the land of their inheritance, and their gold, and their silver, and their precious things, to perish in the wilderness” (1 Nephi 2:11). But a third son, Nephi, prayed and found hope in the promise of a desirable destination:
Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands.
1 Nephi 2:20
Like Abraham, Nephi hadn’t seen this new land, but he believed in God’s promise and found comfort in moving toward a goal.
Throughout the remainder of Nephi’s record, discouragement looks backward, while hope faces forward. For example, when Nephi and his brothers return to Jerusalem on a dangerous mission and remain away longer than expected, their mother, Sariah, says to Lehi, “Thou hast led us forth from the land of our inheritance, and my sons are no more, and we perish in the wilderness.” Lehi responds, “I have obtained a land of promise, in the which things I do rejoice; yea, and I know that the Lord will deliver my sons out of the hands of Laban, and bring them down again unto us in the wilderness” (1 Nephi 5:2, 5). A focus on what they had given up—”the land of our inheritance”—was demotivating, but a reminder of the promised land restored optimism.
We see a similar pattern in the story of Hagar, Abraham’s second wife and Sarai’s maid. After she fled from home, an angel found her in the wilderness and asked two questions, one backward-looking and one pointing forward:
Whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go?
Genesis 16:8
Hagar answered only the first question: “I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.” She knew what she had left behind, but she didn’t know where she was going. The angel helped her to see that her bright future, filled with God’s blessings, would come when she returned home. (See Genesis 16:9-14.)
Some of the best career advice I ever received was this: when considering an opportunity, ask yourself if you’re running toward something or away from something. We make wiser decisions and find more joy when we’re pursuing meaningful goals instead of merely reacting to unpleasant circumstances.
Today, I will follow the examples of Abraham and Lehi, looking toward my promised lands instead of dwelling on lands of inheritance that I have left behind. I will remember that hope and encouragement are forward-looking.
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