Let’s read the story.
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him,
“Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
Then God said, “Take your son, your only
son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a
burnt offering on a mountain I will show
you.” (Genesis 22:1-2, NIV)
Early
the next morning Abraham
got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son
Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the
place God had told him about. On the third day
Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and
the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
…
When they
reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord
called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I
am,” he replied.
“Do not lay
a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you
fear God, because you
have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Abraham
looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt
offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” (Genesis 22:3-5, 9-14, NIV)
Notice in the passage that God
said “your only son,...Isaac”? Did not Abraham had another son, Ishmael,
through Hagar the slave woman? The explanation is in Genesis 21:8-14 that
before this happened, Abraham had to let Ishmael go to fulfill his wife Sarah’s
wishes. So in this particular situation, when Isaac was being offered to the
Lord, Abraham had no one left! No other son to call his own. He was in this
moment of his life giving away his one and only son. There was no other son to
replace Isaac because Ishmael was gone and there was no guarantee that God would give him
another son.
Sometimes God gives
us these tests. Maybe it is a career, a relationship, a personal goal or dream,
even marriage. Waiting purifies us and gives God time to work in our hearts
that though God promised us good things, He is still more important and that when
He finally answers our prayer, the glory will not be on our own efforts or
goodness (though of course we do our part!), but the ultimate glory will go to
God.
We
also see that even in His promises and His sure will for us, we can also be
asked to let go of what we thought was already God’s blessing and God’s will in
the first place, in the knowledge that everything belongs to God. Psalm 24:1
says “The earth is the LORD's, and
everything in it, the world, and all who live in it…” God owns everything.
Thankfully,
God is still love and He still has plans no matter how things may look in the
present. God is still a working God. He never changes but He is continually at
work.
Lastly, I will make a
point that our point of having comes from God. If we have God, we have
everything we need. In knowing God can we come to this point of possessing the
very best in life – God Himself. God can fill our hearts. God can satisfy our
deepest desires and needs. God in us in the form of Christ is like tasting the
best in life that this world cannot match.
We have because we
have God. He is good, desirable, majestic, incomparable, unchanging,
incorruptible, eternal, unlimited and true.
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