Abraham: The Tested.
Sometimes I read the Word, and I would literally give almost anything to be back there, watching the reality of the lives Biblical characters lived. Because it’s so easy to get lost in their characters, in their stories, we forget that that’s not all they are. These were people, real solid people, with feelings and emotions and all that we have and are. And there’s no one, asides from Christ of course, that I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall more with, than Abraham. Now that, that was a life to live. I don’t even have the mental or emotional capacity to understand everything he did and gave, both to God and to man.
There are many things I do not understand in the Bible, and in life, but as I think about some people’s lives, I cannot deny that the confusion comes more from a place of bewilderment than disbelief. Because are you seriously trying to tell me that God, God Himself, used to reveal Himself and talk to the children of Israel, and those people still had the mind to misbehave as often and as much as they did, from generation to generation?? Or that women used to offer their maids to their husbands for children? As in, offer o. Like, “please help me get her pregnant?!”
The Bible is literally the most thrilling book I’ve ever read, because from one page to another, there’s something to either steal your breath, stop your heart or blow your mind. You’ll see the Israelites, AKA “One week, One trouble”, doing their own. Then there’s David, the Poet with big eyes, but still, the “Beloved”. And Solomon, the literal “IDAN” of Lagos men. Even Samson, but let me not even enter that one because hmmm… Anyway, today the tale I bear is that of Father Abraham.
Abraham (FKA Abram) is almost always called the Father of Every Nation, and while most Christians claim to be children of Abraham, in reality we’re really just saying that by faith because obviously, Abraham died a long time ago, so there’s no way he could biologically father everyone. But in his life here on earth, Abraham did have children. Two, if we’re being specific, called Ishmael and Isaac. But Ishmael was the son of a slave, a woman named Hagar, who was the maid of Abraham’s wife (Gen. 16). That’s what I meant when I said those women were really out here offering maids to their husbands, but anyways. Ishmael was the son of a slave, and to make things worse, Hagar was an Egyptian, which was a foreign nation riddled with the practice of witchcraft.
But Isaac… That was the child of Promise, the son of his old age, the legitimate heir to the everything Abraham had, including the promises God had made to him. Isaac was his One fulfillment of God’s promises that Abraham had while he was alive, asides from material wealth. Isaac was his heart. And that’s why I find Gen. 22 so incredible to read. It tells of how God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only legitimate son, the one he loved, as a burnt offering to Him, even calling Isaac by name to avoid type of misunderstanding. Sacrifice Isaac ke?! Am I being too unreasonable to believe that the first thing I would have thought in that moment was that I could not be hearing properly? Sacrifice! And then as a burnt offering??? Am I actually understanding this correctly? That he should kill his child, and then burn his body? But that’s not even the part that struck me the most. It’s the fact that God didn’t not even tell him where to do it immediately. “…upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Gen. 22:1)
This was it, the part that utterly blew my mind. Take a second to actually ponder what God asked Abraham to do. I’m a daddy’s girl, always have been, so I know that there’s absolutely nothing a parent would not do for their child. But now, God was asking Abraham to give up his child, and not only that, but to be the hand that ended his life.
As a basic human, most of us flinch at striking a child, or even being present when it occurs. So as a father, that must have felt like asking him to cut himself open with his own hand, and rip his own heart out. But let’s imagine he could even separate his feelings as a father from the mission. As a servant of God, it must have been very confusing for him. Because this was a child that he had been promised, a child that he had waited a 100 years for, a child that carried the prophecy of generations to come. And the same God that had promised him all of this, was now asking him to kill the child???
You need to understand, this was not just about him and his son. Killing Isaac meant killing the promises of God to Abraham. It would have destroyed everything he believed God had given, and had promised to still give. Sacrificing Isaac meant sacrificing hope, and what is life without hope? Thoughts of that kind must have gone through his mind. I can only imagine the depths of grief and sadness that must have consumed him at that point.
But with this, God was asking for trust, for ultimate submission. I need you to see. We know, because we have read and heard this story a million times, that this was a test, that God was asking Abraham, “What comes first in your life? Who comes first? Will you give it all up for Me? For My will??” But there’s something we often forget, that ABRAHAM HAD NO IDEA!!!!
He didn’t know about the angel, or the ram in the thicket (Gen. 22:13). He knew NOTHING, literally zilch, except that God had just asked for everything he had to give. And yettttttt, what did this man of flesh and blood do? Verse 3 tells us that he rose early the next morning and prepared for his journey, early. The Bible is so deliberate, it gives me chills. It doesn’t say he woke up, because it would be too much of a stretch to even think that he’d sleep after getting that kind of instruction. But he rose early to meet his fate, to obey.
Nooooo, you people are not understanding how deep this story reaches. Abraham got up early to give up his heart, to give up everything. Being the dramatic person that I am, I fully believe that Abraham got up early to die, because killing Isaac would have killed him. Maybe not physically, but still, it would have killed him. And yet, he did.
That’s not all. Verse 4 makes it clear that it took 3 days before Abraham even saw the place God was leading him to. 3 days of traveling. 3 days to think, to look at his child who was following him in complete trust because you’re his father, knowing that you’ll be the last face he’ll ever see. 3 days to second guess and question himself and the instruction. 3 days is a lot of time to be in the hell of your own mind, and Abraham was in it. We like to talk about his unshakable faith and his commitment to God, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, surviving those days would have taken every ounce of faith that he had, and then some. But we knowthat he still had faith. Somehow, he kept putting one foot in front of the other. Somehow he didn’t crumble to his knees and hug his child to himself and run back home, sure that the devil must have been the one to speak to him. Somehow he had faith. Enough faith to leave his servants behind and continue with his son, enough faith to assure them that they’d be back (Vs 5), enough faith to place the wood on his child and grip the knife in one hand and the fire in another (vs 6). Abraham had enough faith to answer his son’s innocent question with assurance (Vs 8)…
It completely blows my mind. How??? How does someone get there?? To that point where the promise is enough, even when everything in you watches as it seems to be destroyed? How do you get to the place where the How doesn’t even matter to you because the Who is all you have and all you need? How did Abraham even reconcile what he was going to do to his son with himself? Had he considered what he would tell his servants when he got back? What he would tell his wife? How exactly would he explain that he killed the child that she had borne in her 90’s, the only one she had? Of course he would have thought about all of this. But still, he found the faith in God, in the knowledge that God was more than enough to give him his son back, and even if He didn’t, he would survive. Because God had promised. That’s how much Abraham knew God. That, is how much he trusted Him. That, was the true sacrifice in itself. Climbing up that mountain, dying in each step. Setting up that altar, with burning anguish in each stone. Binding that boy, and placing him upon the altar. That was Abraham’s worship. His submission was his sacrifice. His obedience was his sacrifice. It was all he had left to give, and still, he gave it. He gave it.
It’s easy to give to God out of the abundance He has given, but how easy is it when God asks for all you have to give? How true is our worship then? How firm is our obedience? How much is our trust worth, then?
Obedience and total submission isn’t something that happens overnight, it didn’t happen overnight with Abraham. He had cultivated that trust and faith in God from prior experience. Abram had obeyed when God asked him to move, even though he didn’t even know where he was going. He had walked before the Lord and seen Him work mighty things in his life. He had trusted in His promise and seen Isaac born from that trust.
But then again, what do we know about trust? We, who live in a generation consumed by the need for evidence and proof before the fact? What do we know of faith, when data and research validate our “theories”? If we know nothing of trust, and nothing of faith, then what can we hope to know of true worship? Of true submission to One who is as sure as time, because He created it? How can we hope to understand genuine obedience? Woe to the logical mind that attempts it. Woe, and a migraine for your troubles.
God calls us to trust Him always, even when we don’t understand, especially then. To trust that He loves us enough to keep His promises to us. To trust that He will always, always honor His Word and His Will is to bring us to an expected end. God wants us all to build our faith in Him as we walk with Him, learning and loving and believing. Brethren, God wants us to become, as we behold (2 Cor. 3:18).
Greetings from the foot of the Cross…
Gabrielle.
