Number the Dust

Genesis 3:16

And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

Dust is pretty hard to see, let alone count! And that's when it's dry.

I'd say it's about impossible when it's wet or dissolved...

Egypt, another Garden of Pleasure

Genesis 13:10

And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.

Did you catch that? Egypt once looked like the Garden of Eden! That's not exactly the typical picture that comes to mind when we think of that land today.

Unsustainable Substance

Genesis 13:6-7

And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.

The Hebrew word for bear or sustain there is nasa: A primitive root; to lift, in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively, absolutely and relatively.

Some might take this to mean there was "unsustainable development" and that they were taking too much from the land. The context seems to imply less about ecology and more about their stuff. They had too many things, and the fact of the land is, two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

How often do we acquire so many things that we can no longer even live together?

Returning to the First Calling

Genesis 12:20-13:6

And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south. And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai; Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.

And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.

Sandwiched in the middle of leaving one place and finding another is a pause for prayer.

It's good to seek God in transition.