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Last year, I wrote about Abraham and his seemingly impossible task from God to sacrifice His son. Today, reading over Abraham's life journey in church, I was again hit with the magnitude of Abraham's story. But more importantly, I was reminded of Abraham's humanity and the years of growth that brought him to this point.
Abraham hadn't always been this trusting. In fact, he had once been named Abram, a scared individual who would rather lie and shrink away from the fear of death rather than trust God to save him. He had journeyed from one foreign land to the next beseeching his beautiful wife to call herself his sister so that he wouldn't be killed for her sake. But years of testing in his life had taught him to trust God. At least, God renamed him Abraham, a father of nations, and blessed him and Sarah with the son that they had been awaiting for decades.
Abraham hadn't even been able to trust God with his own life, but when he finally saw God work a miracle, he found the courage and faith to trust God with his son's life. He might have failed to measure up before, with disobedience, doubt, or partial obedience, but this time, he knew his God was big enough. His God was the God of miracles, the God of the impossible. This God was the God he'd followed through the wilderness, the God who rewarded his patience and his trust every time with blessings that took his breath away and made him laugh again.
Some people accuse Abraham of being a crazy old man, a schizophrenic individual prepared to murder his son whenever he heard voices. That's because faith looks like insanity from the outside. Absolute trust and obedience and the ultimate sacrifices look crazy to a world familiar only with self-indulgence and self-reliance.
Isaac was Abraham's dream, his promise. God had promised that he would provide Abraham with a son--probably the only thing in the world this wealthy, blessed man lacked and yearned for--and now it looked like God was about to take this blessing away. Can you imagine dreaming and longing for something or someone for nearly your whole life, and then having it ripped away? But worse than that, can you imagine someone asking you to let go of it? Think of your dearest loved ones or your biggest, lifelong dreams. When these are taken from us, we are absolutely crushed. Depressed. Heartbroken. Could you imagine willingly giving them up because you trust God has a better plan? Can you trust that God loves you so much that He has a better plan than that dream you treasure? Can you trust He loves your family and dearest friends more than even you do?
These are mind-boggling questions. But Jesus said, thousands of years later, that in order to follow Him, we have to put Him above all else. Above the dreams. Above the goals. Above the love of family and friends. Above ourselves.
In my own life, I can't really say I've passed this test. I feel like I've been compelled to climb the mountain at different times, but I stumble, I crawl, I grow weak, and I question why God is dragging me up this route. In the past, my faith and my patience all but broke. I wasn't the most willing mountain climber, but my sight was clouded and it seemed like there was no other way. I tried to trust that God had a plan, but I didn't like the thought of having to sacrifice mine.
It's true that the walk up the mountain is painful, long, and heartbreaking. I'm sure even Abraham, full of enough faith to choose to climb the mountain when he could have turned away, nearly broke down during the climb. But if we push through to the top, we'll find a new perspective. And perhaps, as I have before, we'll even find out that what we thought was lost is not gone after all--we just had to temporarily give it up or lose sight of it from our limited viewpoint in order to find it again. I wasn't the most faithful Christian, but God is faithful. Perhaps Abraham, also, wished that he hadn't trembled so much or questioned God so many times over the days' ride to the mountain. Maybe he wondered why he'd hesitated so long to bind his son, or why he had continued to feed the rising fear and frustration. But there his obedience brought blessing, and the son he was willing to give back to God, was given to him a second time. It's there on the mountain that God honors our sacrifices, even those that seem small to outsiders, or so large they make us look crazy, and blesses us beyond what we ever dreamed before.
