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Genesis 13 — Too rich for my blood!

Don’t you just hate it when you’re just too rich? That’s the predicament Abram and Lot are in for this chapter. They just have too much cattle and sheep, and too many people to tend all this livestock, that they just couldn’t live together anymore.

So they start fighting, perhaps it went something like this:
—Abram: You’ve got way too many sheep, bro! They’re giving my legions of shepherds headaches. Then they come complain to me, and make me lose count when I’m trying to count all my vast sums of money. What a buzz-kill.
—Lot: Oh yeah, well tell all your shepherd dudes to steer clear of my insanely large group of sheep, bro! I’m way too rich and important to be bothered by all this sheep nonsense.

Family counseling wasn’t available back then, but something had to be done. They decide that riches are more important than family. They could have given some of their sheep and riches to the poor, or given some to their shepherds so the shepherds could start a new life somewhere else. But then Abram and Lot wouldn’t be fabulously wealthy anymore. So instead of parting with some of their riches, they decide to part ways.

Lot ends up going to live by wicked people (which is a lot better than living next to a rich family member, I guess!), and after Lot leaves, God decides to give Abram all the land in sight to all his descendants, forever. That must have been a relief to Abram knowing that future generations of his family would always have land to live on.

That’s what really happened, right? All of Abram’s descendants have always had somewhere to live, haven’t they? God promised it, and you can always count on God to keep his word, can’t you? God’s promises are good as gold, right? Hmm, maybe that’s why Abram and Lot didn’t want to part with their riches so soon. It’s always good to keep a rainy-day fund when dealing with God.