ENCOUNTER WITH GOD: ABRAHAM, PART TWO

What a rocky road Abraham has already traveled in his pilgrimage. But a few years later will come the hardest test of all. God has watched Abe and his son. He watched the way Abe first looked at his son at his birth, and how after a century of waiting, Abe laughed. They laughed through toddlerhood and boyhood. I imagine Abe took Isaac with him everywhere by then. He wanted to squeeze the most out of each day with this long-awaited and much-promised son. I’m sure he was over-protective, doting over the boy at every childhood injury or cold. This was, after all, his only begotten son, and there would be no more.

[Gen. 22] And the Lord tells Abe to worship again, only this time it’s not a sheep or an ox. God cals for Abe to give his son—his only son, Isaac, whom he loves. God is very specific in pinpointing the difficulty of this sacrifice. The promises have been nice, though seemingly impossible. But this one goes too far. At least, it seems that way to me. but perhaps by this point, Abe has learned to take God’s words to him by faith, and Abe knows that Isaac is the one thing in the world that he would not, could not, cannot give up. It seems to destroy the promise, more surely than Ishmael would have fulfilled it.

Without question or argument, Abe follows the Lord’s call. He has learned to obey God’s call and to trust the outcome over the last three decades. He doesn’t bring an animal (no backup plan on Abe’s part this time). He only brings his beloved son. There is no other plan in his mind. But he is wrestling with God the whole way, I’m sure. God shows him the mountain (are you sure this is what you want, Lord?). He goes on up with just Isaac and the wood (maybe you mean something else, and I wasn’t hearing you right?). He builds an altar and arranges the wood (is there anything you’d like to say now, Lord?). He binds his son and takes out the knife, and holds it aloft, ready to kill his son as swiftly and painlessly as possible. Tears are streaming down his face, which is contorted in pain. Nothing has ever been so difficult for Abraham as this.

Then (and not a moment sooner or later) an angel cries out from heaven. “Abraham! Abraham!” In the greatest understatement of the Bible, Abraham say, “I’m listening!” And God does, in fact, spare Isaac, does bring him back from the dead, in a sense, does provide a ram in Isaac’s place.
And now God—and Abraham—know that Abe truly fears the Lord and would give him everything.

What would be the hardest thing for me to give up—not just lose, but give away? Perhaps sending my firstborn son into the military. Perhaps losing my voice, or my hands, or my ability to make music. Perhaps my wife. Perhaps it was hardest for Moses to throw down his rod at the burning bush. Perhaps it was hardest for Paul to have a thorn in the flesh. Whatever it is, it tends to be what the Holy Spirit asks for from me. Like the Beast telling Belle that she could go anywhere but the west wing, I tell God what He can’t have, and He goes right to it and asks for it. If I have been trained by what He has told me before, I know that His promises and joy have sustained me when I have obeyed in the past, so I can trust Him with this one, too.