In Egypt Abram's plan comes to a painful end. Sarai is taken into Pharaoh's house. The LORD afflicts Pharaoh's household, and Pharaoh confronts Abram about what he kept back. He has Sarai returned and sends them away. Strikingly, Abram is not the one who brings his own solution to a good end. God intervenes while Abram had thought he needed to protect himself.
Scripture also tells us that Abram leaves Egypt with considerable possessions. That makes the story uncomfortable. Prosperity here is not a simple sign that Abram acted rightly. The account asks us to look more carefully than merely at what a person has gained along the way.
Then Genesis 13 says something we can easily pass over. Abram returns to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had stood before, to the place of the altar he had made at first. “And there Abram called on the name of the LORD” (Genesis 13:4). It almost repeats Genesis 12:8. First we read that he called upon the Name there. Now, after Egypt, the same words are heard again.
So he does not merely retrace a geographical route. The story brings us back to the same place and the same Name. It does not say that Abram made up for his mistake with some impressive achievement. It says that he called upon the LORD again.
Perhaps we recognise that. After a wrong turn we can become so occupied with what we must put right ourselves that we forget where the way back begins. Not with a story that makes us right after all, but with the LORD who had not let Abram go. His Name can be called upon again.