refusing to settle

“The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”

Thomas Merton

“We now live in a time when consumer Christianity has become the accepted norm, and all-out engagement with and in Jesus’ kingdom among us is regarded as somewhat ‘overdoing it.’”

Dallas Willard

Ronald Rolheiser once observed that when we’re young, we struggle to contain our energy. But in midlife, we struggle to summon it.

That insight struck me this past week as I listened to Luke LeFevre preach at The Altars Conference we host in New York City. Luke preached from Genesis 11, highlighting a sobering truth hidden among a familiar passage: the danger of settling for less than our full inheritance.

We often think of Abraham as the father of our faith. His name is invoked in the “Abrahamic” religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But in an often-overlooked passage, it seems the original call to go to Canaan was given to Terah, Abraham’s father, not Abraham himself.

Genesis 11:31-32 records:

One day, Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai (his son Abram’s wife), and his grandson Lot (his son Haran’s child) and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans. He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there. Terah lived for 205 years and died while still in Haran.

Terah did something remarkable. He left Ur of the Chaldeans, a center of pagan worship, where the moon god Nanna (Sin) was venerated. Joshua 24:2 suggests that Terah himself likely participated in this idolatry before God called him out. His departure wasn’t just geographical; it was a break from a culture of idolatry and a step toward worshiping the one true God.

But here’s the tragedy: he stopped short.

He set out for Canaan, but he settled in Haran instead. He died there, halfway to the promise, halfway to his calling.

This narrative gives us what theologians call the pattern of partial obedience, a pattern that repeats itself in the lives of so many men today.

Terah’s journey was real but incomplete. He heard the call but never finished the course.

THE DANGER OF HARAN

Here’s what unsettles me: We’ve built a Christian culture that often celebrates Haran-level spirituality. We mistake movement for arrival. We applaud partial obedience as if it were full surrender.

Terah’s story is a warning.

Imagine the tragedy if St Augustine stopped his journey from hedonism at Manichaeism or Neo-Platonism instead of Christ. Imagine the tragedy if you trade passionate devotion for going through the motions. Terah moved away from obvious idolatry but failed to reach true worship.

Haran, in a sense, became his halfway house, a place of partial reformation that substituted for full surrender. He exchanged one idolatrous city for another, just with a little more respectability.

That’s the real danger. Haran wasn’t a place of outright failure but of partial success. It was better than Ur, but “better than” isn’t the same as “arrived at.” This is what haunts me when I look at men today. We start strong. We hear a call. We take steps forward. But somewhere along the way, we stop.

Sometimes, pain slows us down, and sometimes, it’s exhaustion. But often, it’s success.

Terah’s story exposes the subtle seduction of comfort—of good enough. We can build impressive lives in Haran while Canaan remains untouched.

THE HARANS WE SETTLE FOR

In our time, Haran looks different, but it functions the same. It’s where we stop short of radical surrender and trade full transformation for a safer, more manageable faith.

In the Dutch Reformed tradition, there’s a concept called “common grace stopping points,” the places where God works to bring partial reformation but which can actually prevent full conversion. These might include:

• Orthodox theology without heart transformation

• Moral reform without gospel dependence

• Religious activity without spiritual intimacy

• Cultural sophistication without biblical fidelity

Haran is where we settle, not for outright rebellion but for a respectable faith that doesn’t cost too much.

We leave our personal Ur, whether that’s addiction, materialism, or selfish ambition, only to settle into a refined, comfortable version of the same thing. We exchange obvious idols for subtle ones: success, reputation, or control. We keep moving, but only far enough to feel like we’ve changed.

DON’T DIE IN HARAN

But here’s the good news: as long as you’re breathing, you can still move forward.

Peter’s story doesn’t end with denial.
John Mark’s doesn’t end with conflict.
Cleopas’ story doesn’t end in the village of Emmaus.

You can resume the journey.

Terah stopped, but Abraham continued. He pressed on where his father quit. Because of that, he became the father of nations, inheriting the promise of God.

Maybe that means…

• Revisiting your original calling—where have you stopped short of the full call God gave you in your early years?

• Identify the idols that have made you comfortable—what success, security, or approval have you settled for?

• Evaluate your current decisions—are they made through the lens of faith and full inheritance or just “good enough” and respectability?

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The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”

That’s what Terah missed. That’s what many of us miss. We fear the struggle, but spiritual growth isn’t about avoiding hardship. It’s about pressing into greater and greater battles, growing stronger with each one, and getting further down the road of redemption to our full inheritance.

WHERE HAVE YOU SETTLED?

Eugene Peterson talked about "the domestication of transcendence,” the tendency to remove the wild, costly call of divine encounter with respectable religion. Dallas Willard warns that if we go all in for Jesus, we will be seen as those who overdo it.

If wholehearted obedience is what it takes to deliver me from Haran, I want to overdo it.

I refuse to stop halfway.
I refuse to mistake respectability for transformation.
I refuse to trade a risky faith for a safe religion.

Haran is a trap. It’s a spiritual graveyard for men who started strong but settled too soon.

Don’t let that be your story.

As Luke LeFevre reminded me…

Don’t die in Haran.

By God's grace, when it's all said and done, you will find my bones in Canaan, and I hope yours will be there, too.

Here for a full inheritance.

Cheers.

Jon.

PS. - If you are looking for a way to keep moving forward in your faith, why not grab a copy of Fighting Shadows, grab a couple of brothers, and keep pushing forward? Jefferson and I address the seven core lies that keep men from becoming fully alive, the same ones that keep so many men out of Canaan today.