The Call of Abram
(A Parable for Childhood)

All of human life begins as a call from the Lord - a call to that promised land which we spontaneously recognize means heaven. As the Lord called Abram to Canaan, so He calls each one of us to heaven. As every Israelite had his own place in Canaan, so each one of us can have a place prepared for us in the Lord's eternal kingdom. Our life is very much like a migration. We are created with one purpose, that the journey of our life should bring us to heaven and eternal happiness. And the Lord is within, pressing to be received, each step of the way.

But the peoples of Ur and Haran along the Euphrates valley, where Abram's journey began, were idolatrous. Their way of life with their many gods represented that busy land of mixed motives and confused goals in which we all begin, those tendencies towards evil which nag us over and over again on the journey. But Abram as the father of all Israel, represents all of us, who while beginning in natural selfish and worldly delights have the opportunity to leave those states behind and respond to the Lord's call. We can get out of our country and away from those delights which are like family to us; and if we will, we can go to a land that the Lord shows us. In every doubt and every temptation, we can turn to the Lord and He will be there.

Clearly the Lord's call to leave Haran in its spiritual meaning was a call to come out of worldly delights and the fancies of the natural man, and to become a true follower of the Lord. We too are called; will we respond? This is not a decision of a moment. Every day we come up against the choice - follow the Lord to His land or settle back in our own selfishness. Day after day there is the temptation to turn back. It is a long, hard journey, but one that is increasingly hopeful.

Self-love so often means home and security to us. We seem to be comfortable when we care for ourselves, when we take care of number one. But we are called away from our seemingly pleasant land of apathy and self satisfaction to the truly promised land that only the Lord can show us.

When we picture Abram in a land which was home to him, with all his cattle and servants we begin to see the impact of the choice. Abram knew of the difficulties in passing with his herds through the treasured grazing land of other nations. We know that the true path of life can only become easy with the Lord's help. Our decision to follow the Lord is certainly no less weighty than Abram's natural choice. Our journey too, is full of pitfalls and problems, but it too is the way of promise. It is the way to a happy, lasting and spiritual home. Our seed, our understanding and our affections can multiply to eternity, like the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea.

This is just the general spiritual meaning and significance of our text. Our preparation for our place in heaven begins in earliest childhood. Specifically Abram and his journey represents the beginnings of our journey when the Lord provides His first gifts to us to help us face the hells. Abram's answering the Lord's call, represents the very beginning of spiritual life.

Even in earliest infancy man is being prepared to inherit the promised land, seemingly so far away, yet actually growing within. We are all born among idolatrous nations. There is not a child born without hereditary tendencies towards evils. Though these are not actual sins, they are our spiritual background and environment. But immediately the Lord labors to produce a balance in an infant's mind. He carefully sees to it that every one of us as a child is also innocent and willing to be led. Like Abram infants are a combination of being born in an evil land, yet willing to answer the Lord's call. The more their innocence is preserved, the more parents help them learn the true way of life, the more affections for good and for truth the Lord can give them in a form called remains. These wonderful affections of trust and love are called remains because they remain throughout life. They are preserved and protected, as the beginning of our new will, the will every angel enjoys in heaven. As Abram became naturally wealthy, so we can help the Lord give our children spiritual riches to take with them on their journey, the world of nature and the wonder of the Word, the example of our strongest human effort to respond to the Lord's love.

Though we can receive these delights that last in all good first states throughout life, the highest and most profound affections are given primarily in infancy.

Psychology in its efforts to probe the influence of childhood, has particularly confirmed the power of these states of trust, bonding with someone outside of ourselves, in reality the nascent ability to truly love others. But psychology has no explanation of the origin of these affections. Yet the Writings explain that remains are given to us as deep affections through our association with angelic spirits. At first this may sound strange. We are not aware of these associations. But because they come from outside of ourselves, we can freely choose what affections will influence us. We choose our spiritual associates. When we are receiving good affections, we feel high hopes and unrealized ideals. These affections spur us to the promised land and sustain our effort to serve and be useful. Remains of infancy particularly inspire us to serve our God, sustain us through doubt and temptation and renew trust in the Lord and His leading. Unseen heavenly hands support us as we learn to walk spiritually. Angels as it were cradle us when spiritual night stirs fear in our hearts. We go forward knowing that the Lord is always there.

The trust we feel as a child for our parents is the basis for that later security we feel under our Heavenly Father. Our feeling of peace and security, our responses to our parents' loving care, our basic trust and innocence are with us always, and they remain with us forever. In fact they make us human.

During infancy, in that state beyond our conscious memory a promise was established in our heart. Affections were lent to us from heaven. They were not yet our own, but they prepared the way for our basic adult decisions. They provided the condition that put the choice before us, will we stay in our own idolatrous land, or follow the Lord?

When we face this basic decision of human life over and over on the journey, as a result of our childhood affections, we sense deep within that in a life of good there is peace and happiness. We carry with us celestial remains from earliest infancy, states when in simple trust we depended on our parents for all things, even as now we depend upon the Lord for all things. As a child we learned that being good was the key to our happiness. The promise of our infancy, that if we follow the Lord we will find happiness is always with us to give us balance and freedom. It is true that we can close our minds and hearts to these precious influences. But the children of Israel returned again and again to the Lord's words given to Abram at his call "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing."

Our text treats of a state even prior to the time when a child begins to be formally instructed, even prior to when he begins his first speech. Children know and feel confidence and love long before they begin what seems to us to be the conscious learning process. These insights and affections which make a background of gentle security or neglectful loneliness are acquired in infancy. Fortunately the Lord provides these peaceful angelic states no matter what the environment. But we can influence both the depth and the amount or breadth of these remains, by how we nurture the infants in our care.

The establishment of these affections is primarily the Lord's work. He brings this about through the sphere of his highest angels, good men and women who have gone to the other world, to whom He assigns the task of watching over and being present with the new born babes. Few mothers can fondle their innocent babes without feeling an awe in the presence of the Lord's handiwork. We wonder what these tiny ones are thinking and feeling. We know that they cannot tell us. Yet we feel it so strongly.

Every pleasant sensation of an infant from the time when it first finds its nourishment, brings delight to it. The angels are present in every sensation, and tenderly establish delights and affections. And the Lord gives us strong loves for our offspring so that we may cooperate with Him in His work. It is true that no matter what we do the Lord's work will go on. And yet if from love we give our little ones care and peaceful surroundings, if we tenderly watch over them and protect them, then we are being a part of the Lord's work - then we are bidding Him to take our babes in His arms and bless them.

During this time of infancy, and to some degree later, the child's mother and father represent the Lord to him - an awesome responsibility when we think of it. This is the internal reason why love and respect for parents is so important. The tiny child's whole life is dependent upon the care of his parents, just as in reality we depend solely upon the Lord for our spiritual life. The representation of natural parents, prepares the way for recognizing that old or young we are all the Lord's children. Through this love for parents the child is prepared like Abram to erect altars to the Lord as he journeys throughout his promised land - altars to the One Jehovah whom he is just beginning to know. In a sense the joy of heaven is the wonder of new beginning, fulfillment and new beginnings once more, to eternity.

Even in our busy care-burdened world, let us not neglect what we can do for the children in any of their growing states, that His promise may be fulfilled. In reality they are His children. And our adult states of love, of trust and confidence, of innocence and peace - though affirmed by our own free choice are truly His offspring. As we care for our children's innocent desires and strive to feed their inquiring minds with the truth, so we must open our own hearts to the sustaining gift of innocence the Lord would provide. We must strive for the wisdom which will make a home for that innocence, a home for the Lord with us. As we read the Word to our children, so we must read it daily ourselves if we would have the Lord lead us on our way. As He calls them, so He continues to call us through whatever innocence He can inspire. He speaks then, not only to the preservation of innocence in the young but to the preservation of innocence in each of us. It was an eternal message to both adult and child when He said, "Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." (Matt 19:14)

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"From remains, that is, through remains from the Lord, man is able to be as man, to know what is good and true, to reflect upon matters of every kind, and consequently to think and to reason; for in remains alone is there spiritual and celestial life.

But what are remains? They are not only the goods and truths that a man has learned from the Lord's Word from infancy, and has thus impressed on his memory, but they are also all the states thence derived, such as states of innocence from infancy; states of love toward parents, brothers, teachers, friends; states of charity toward the neighbor, and also of pity for the poor and needy; in a word all states of good and truth. These states together with the goods and truths impressed on the memory are called remains, which are preserved in man by the Lord and are stored up, entirely without his knowledge in his internal man, and are completely separated from the things that are proper to man, that is, from evils and falsities. All these states are so preserved in man by the Lord that not the least of them is lost, as I have been given to know from the fact that every state of a man from his infancy to extreme old age, not only remains in the other life, but also returns, in fact his states return exactly as they were while he lived in this world. Not only do the goods and truths in the memory thus remain and return, but also all states of innocence and charity. And when states of evil and falsity recur - for each and all of these, even the smallest, also remain and return - then these states are tempered by the Lord by means of the good states. From all this it is evident that if a man had no remains he must necessarily be in eternal damnation." (AC 560-561)