What do you do when you are facing the possibility of unexpected loss? When life is going smoothly and suddenly you find out that your job might end or that medical tests might show cancer? When you know that God is asking you to do something that feels like a foolish risk to you, to whom do you turn? What do you do?
It couldn’t have been easy for Abraham when God came to him and asked him to take his only son, Isaac, up to the mountain and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. This was the miracle baby that God have given to him and to Sarah in their old age. This was the promised son through whom God’s promises and covenant would be fulfilled. Why in the world would God ask him to do this? But, we read in Genesis 22, Abraham got up early and went with Isaac, wood, fire, and knife in hand. When Isaac asked him about the sheep which they would need, he could tell him with confidence that “God would provide”. How did he know this? The habit of worship, of bowing down before the Lord, the Eternal God, in submission and thanksgiving, was his practice. No doubt Isaac had observed how his dad waited on the Lord and Abraham knew that as he waited on his God with faith, that somehow Jehovah, the Eternal One, would keep His covenant promises to them and to his descendants.
We long for everything to go smoothly and according to our plans. God longs for us to allow Him to change our plans and then to watch Him provide for us in miraculous ways and to bless us. It was true for Abraham and Isaac and it is just as true for you and me.
