For Abram, the encounter with God must have been very powerful and simply beyond all that he had experienced so far. It was no vague feeling, no maybe, no short-term emotional experience. How can we be sure? Because if it had been just a momentary inner excitement, he wouldn't have gathered his loved ones and gone into the unknown forever, he wouldn't have burned the bridges. However, we can see from his actions that he was fully convinced of the reality of what he experienced and heard.

But it was not just an encounter with the eternal and overlapping that drove Abram forward and what the encounter with God brings. Although he achieved a lot in his life, he was absolutely not needy but nevertheless still lacked one thing: he had no children. Even nowadays it is not easy to live without fulfillment of the kind if someone longs for a child, but in earlier times it was a much more pressing issue. People were tied to the family and tribe more strongly than today both in terms of identity (almost all social relationships existed within an extended family) as well as practically. Having children meant the continuation of a tribe, but also security in an old age at a time when there was no social system other than the generational solidarity.

We do not know if Abram was the only one whom God addressed with a call to follow, for what if even here applies that "many are called, but few are chosen"? However, we can be sure that he was the only one who obeyed and really set out.

Hunger causes a desire for satisfaction. Our need thus becomes the door of the heart to God.