God's timing is always perfect. He does the most amazing things to prepare us to partake of His word. Since my beginning He has been gently revealing Himself to me. But this meal of His divine bread was especially longed for over the past year. I'm not sure why some seem to grasp truths like these at different ages and stages of life. I just know I am now blessed to have received this hidden treasure into the depths of my soul, never to be forgotten!
Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22:1-2)
I've never understood how Abraham could even think about doing this seemingly cruel and heartless thing. To offer up your own flesh and blood to a God that previously promised to give unto you. When I was little, and I know this isn't politically correct thinking but bare with me, I learned the phrase Indian giver (click the link to see what Wikipedia has to say about this phrase). It was meant to describe a person who gives you a gift and then wants it back. I guess I somehow bound that phrase with the passage of scripture where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son whom he loved.
Wrong perception of God indeed, and this was the day the Lord was going to correct that ignorant thinking of mine. Abraham knew he was created by God and for God. He knew that God was good and that He was just. Abraham trusted God!
So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him...Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. (Gen 22:3&9)
My heart aches at the thought of willingly offering up a person I love so much for a sacrifice to a God I've never seen or held or known the way I know my loved one. How could love do something like that?
But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” (Gen 22:11-13)
Well, love did. And in that one obedient act of devotion to God the Father; ...the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Genesis 22:15-18)
Wow, OK, way to go Abraham. Adam and Eve procured for us a pretty horrible curse with their disobedience but you've gained us some major blessings!
There do you see it, hidden between a curse and a blessing...between obedience and disobedience? Perhaps you need some magnification...
A promise was made. A gift was given. The One whom created it all gives a gift to the one He created. To One all belongs and the other nothing was owned. Abraham knew he was born poor and naked. He brought nothing into the world and he would surly take nothing out. Everything he had was on loan from God. He knew without God he was nobody with nothing but with God he was somebody with everything.
Last year my husband died. God seemed harsh and cruel to me even though my eyes had read in His book that He wasn't, my heart bled those thoughts. How could God allow me to experience such pain and grief and suffering? My oldest son who is 9 has been talking about death a lot lately. In fact just yesterday he asked me if I thought Déjà vu happened right before a person dies. He has been plagued with déjà vu's recently and like his mother, tries to explain the unexplainable. I told him, no of course not!
With death being the recent topic of choice around my house, I started having anxious thoughts, especially after reading how God asked Abraham to offer his son. My mind raced with what-ifs and while my son was away at a restaurant for a friends birthday party this evening I felt afraid. But then something odd stirred on my heart. It was peace. It was strange! I thought about how I lost my husband and though I might have said that I had accepted it, there were still times when I most assuredly, did not! I thought how Abraham must have suffered and agonized over what he was about to do. I thought of how God freely offered up His perfect Son to pay the ransom price for us sinners. And then I thought of Job who lost everything and in one courageously painful statement declared; “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)
All that said, after my fear had ceased completely, I picked up my son from his birthday dinner and when we were safe and sound in our home once more I hugged him and swayed him with an overflowing heart of thankfulness! Then later that night the Spirit, still swirling about me had one last thing to say. I picked up a book I had disowned to the bookshelf last year for whatever reason. The title, One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp. I read the word Eucharisteo which is the original word used in Luke 22:19 where it reads, "He gave thanks." The author's spellbinding description of thankfulness was God's final awakening to my blind eyes.
"Thanksgiving--giving thanks in everything--is what prepares the way for salvation's whole restoration. Our salvation in Christ is real, yet the completeness of that salvation is not fully realized in the life until the life realizes the need to give thanks. (One Thousand Gifts page 40)
There it is! The hidden truth between the fall and the blessing, between disobedience and obedience. Thanksgiving. In an instant every bad thing that has ever happened drops away like a dead leaf and makes room for the blossoms of spring. Wow, God is good! God knew that when we were given everything we wouldn't be thankful. God knew thanksgiving needed to be cultivated. Who can understand a grateful heart? Not one who is given everything, but one who struggles and suffers and fights for his bread.
There is no way we could earn our right standing before a Holy and perfect God. He doesn't ask us to sacrifice any blood because He's already provided the perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ! Though He is worthy of all sacrifices, His great love for us is that He made a way for us to be reconciled through faith in the shed blood of His greatest sacrifice.
I hope and pray you were able to discover His truth through this post! God is good and works all things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Rom 8:28).
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