Have you ever heard the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac? If you haven't here's the breakdown:
Once upon a time there were two people.
Abraham and his wife, Sarah.
Both desperately want to have children, but cannot conceive.
God tells both that with patience and faith, he will bless them with a child.
God holds true, and Sarah becomes pregnant at the age of 90.
They name their son Isaac.
To test Abraham's faith, God commands him to take his son, Isaac, to a mountain and sacrifice him as a burnt offering.
Abraham does as God commands, and right before he's about to kill his own child, God stops him and believes that Abraham will obey him under any circumstance.
The End.
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Now there's a lot of crazy shenanigans that take place in the Old Testament. Rape, incest, etc. Child sacrifice seems to just be icing on the cake. I believe that Jesus' coming ushered in an age of a loving God versus the angry God of the Old Testament, but still. I cannot reconcile God asking this of one of His children. But more than that, if the lesson to be learned here, is we must love God so entirely that we're willing to give up everything (including but not limited to murdering the people we love most), I confess I am a shitty, shitty Christian.
Before I met Chuck, my Mom and sister were the loves of my life. In fact, they still are. If God were to ever ride down in a winged chariot, beard flowing like some kind of Greek mythological character and asked me to kill my family, you know what I would say? "Umm...no thanks." The same goes for any of my friends. Heck, any of my enemies!
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| Does anyone else find it disturbing that this is in a kids' coloring book?? via |
Now, do I really believe God would ever ask this of me? Not even a little bit. However, wrestling with the story of Abraham and Isaac leads me to question, what would and wouldn't I be willing to give up for God? And do I really love God more than anything else in this world?
Plain and simply, no. Chuck, my Mom and sister have taken up lodging in my heart and have left little room for anyone or anything else to enter. God is more of an acquaintance. While Chuck and I spend every day together, even texting when we're apart, I spend maybe one hour a week with God. Uttering a prayer before devouring my spaghetti, asking Him to bless an interview, counting my blessings, namely for blog purposes. I've managed to make God about the equivalent of a Blogger friend.
I'm an honest and open book with Him. But He is only a priority when it's convenient for me, when I really want something, or am feeling particularly guilty. I want to be in love with God. To be able to call on Him just to say, "Hey! Thanks for being with me when [this] happened today!" To raise Him up above the level of a distant friend.
This is what I gathered from a creepy story about child sacrifice and impregnated elderly people. How do you reconcile Abraham and Isaac, and how does it speak to you? More importantly, how do you try to make God most important in your life? I have no answers today, just questions.
I feel the same way!!
ReplyDeleteThis is a difficult one to understand out of context. I've been teaching a kids Sunday School class on Abraham for the last five weeks and here are some pointers to help.
ReplyDelete1. Abraham has been trusting God's promises for the last 30 years at least when these events take place he has learned to trust God in a way most of us never do.
2. God Promised Abraham that all the promises he had made would be kept in his son Isaac.
3. Abraham figured on God not braking his promise and also knew God could raise people from the Dead (think Centurions daughter, Lazarus and of course Jesus).
4. Abraham is so confident of this that he tells his servants both he and Isaac will return from the sacrifice and he tells Isaac God will provide a lamb for the sacrifice.
5. Guess what - God does just that.
At the beginning of the chapter we are told this was all done to test/tempt Abraham (a la suffering of Job). In other words God knew what kind of man Abraham was and had no intention of braking his promise or even letting the blade touch Isaac.
Most amazing of all this hill which Genesis reports was always known as "God will provide" and over which a legend springs up that God will provide for his people's need, is also known as Calvery and is the place where God carried through on what he asked of Abraham with Jesus. so God provided for the salvation of his people by the sacrifice and resurection of his own son.
Really praying that helps you to understand this difficult, yet amazing passage.
Emile.
Have you ever thought that perhaps it was Abraham who was testing God?
ReplyDelete