When You Don’t Know What to Do Next, Go Back to the Last Place You Met with God | The Altars of Abram and the Gift of Returning

Sometimes faith looks like moving forward with courage. Other times, it looks like going back to where you last heard God speak.

In Genesis 12 and 13, Abram builds two altars. Not because life felt secure, but because God had met him there. The first altar comes after God appears to him in an unfamiliar land and makes a promise that seems impossible: “To your offspring I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7). There’s no deed in his hand. No children in his household. Just a whisper from God, and a man choosing to believe. Abram builds an altar right there in Shechem, a physical reminder that God met him in that moment.

A few verses later, he builds another altar. This time, it's between Bethel and Ai. That detail matters. He’s in between—no longer where he started, but not yet where he’s going. It’s not a mountaintop or a resolution point. It’s a place that feels uncertain and unfinished. And right there, he builds. Not because he’s confident in the journey, but because he’s committed to remembering who walks with him. That altar becomes a pause. A reset. A moment of saying, “I may not know what’s ahead, but I know who You are.”

But the part that speaks to me most is what happens in Genesis 13. After fleeing to Egypt in fear and making choices that exposed his anxiety more than his faith, Abram doesn’t try to fix it through performance or overcompensate with religious effort. He returns. He goes back to the same in-between place. Back to the altar he built before. Back to the last place he felt God's presence. And there, without shame or striving, he calls on the name of the Lord again.

He doesn’t build a new altar. He doesn’t try to start fresh with some dramatic plan. He simply goes back.

How often do we believe we have to earn our way back into God's presence after we’ve failed? That we need to find a new word or a better version of ourselves to be welcomed again? But Scripture offers us something far more beautiful. Returning isn’t weakness. It’s worship. The altar still stands, and so does God's mercy.

Abram’s story reminds us that we don’t need to rebuild everything when we’ve wandered. We just need to remember. Go back to the truth that once anchored you. The verse that held you steady. The quiet space where you sensed God was near. It might not feel dramatic, but it is deeply holy.

You may not need a brand-new breakthrough. You may just need to return. Return to stillness. Return to surrender. Return to the altar that reminded you who God is, even when you had forgotten who you were.

God isn’t waiting for you to get it all together. He’s simply waiting for you to come back.

So if you don’t know what to do next, don’t panic. Don’t try to impress God with your effort. Just go back to the last place you met with Him. That’s where He’ll meet you again.

He always does.