a few years ago I was visiting with my sweet friend bonnie. we were sitting in the beautiful living room of her victorian home on a main street in small town ohio. I was hurting. she was trying to help.
god had forced me to give up something that I did not want to give up. and I was grieving the loss. I had never felt such emptiness. such darkness. grasping in the unknown.
bonnie suggested that I read and meditate on the story of abraham and isaac. I thought to myself - yeah, I should probably do that because I don't understand why she is suggesting that story...
I clearly didn't know the story.
you can catch up on the adventures and lineage and wily ways of abraham throughout genesis. but isaac comes into the picture around chapter 21.
sarah was 100 years old when she gave birth to isaac. she had waited a long, long time. abraham had been promised a son. and isaac was the long-awaited and joyful fulfillment of god's word to them.
sarah said something like "god has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this is gonna laugh too. who would have thought after all this time, at my old age, god would bring me a son."
really, who would have thought? she was 100. people probably thought she was crazy. she surely had sleepless nights, for years and years, wondering if god would actually give her the desire of her heart.
and when isaac came, they all laughed. out of joy, and out of irony. god's timing is sometimes stupid ridiculous.
and all lived happily ever after.
{not so much.}
after some time, god tested abraham. god said "take him up to a mountain, to a place I will show you, and offer isaac as a sacrifice to me."
abe had to be thinking - wtf?!
but the bible doesn't say that {even in so many words}. it just says, the next morning, they prepared and they went.
so - god asked them not to
think about this. not to be
willing. god asked them to
do it. to give up their most precious, treasured, thing. their son. their flesh and blood. he wanted it. he commanded it.
full of trust in god {and, I am sure, sick with pain} abraham did what he was asked to do. he got up early. they packed. he told isaac to come with him. they walked.
isaac asked his dad "where is the lamb for the offering?"
abraham assured him that god would provide the lamb.
then the details of the story get a little thin. I think that we, the readers, are spared. what it doesn't tell you in the bible is about the most anguishing moments. when abraham takes his son. he ties him up. isaac must be screaming. abraham must be going crazy. he raises the knife.
we are spared the gory details. but still, we know.
and stop.
all god needed to know was that abraham was willing to do whatever he asked. and he was.
abraham was willing to give back to god his most precious possession. his most asked for, dreamed about, desired, craved, hoped for thing. he would have given it up.
the thing that always gets me about this story, is that
we know how it ends.
it's nearly impossible to read it with an understanding of the depths of abraham's pain, because we know that god doesn't make him do it.
but abraham didn't know that.
he didn't know. he would have given isaac up.
if there is something I need to bring before the lord, to offer up to him, I have to do it with a spirit that understands the finality of that offering.
the finality of isaac's offering would have certainly been death. and abraham would have lived in grief and pain without him forever. but in the end, god was good and gracious and provided a way out.
what I am giving up to god, I usually try to take back. and give it again. and take it back. and on. and on. and on.
you know what I mean?
I'm challenged everyday by the faith of abraham who did not know the grace-filled end of his own story, like we do.
so when god asks me to do something, or to give something up, I need to trust stronger. and to do it not knowing how the story will end. that is faith.
