No matter what we hold on to letting go is a painful process
God asks Abraham to let go of what he deeply loves and at first glance it’s a horrifying request.“Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Genesis 22:2
How utterly strange for God to promise Abraham that he would be the father of many nations and then to ask him to sacrifice that promise, especially after all he went through to see his son’s birth.
Imagine the heart sinking feeling that Abraham felt about saying his final goodbye to his beloved son. How difficult it is to say a final goodbye to a loved one at a hospice bedside or goodbye to a broken relationship that mattered, a marriage or a dream. Saying goodbye doesn’t mean its forever.
Saying goodbye is hard
Picture a dad’s tearful goodbye embrace to his son at the airport after a great week of fun with dad after a recent unwanted divorce. Inevitably, we all will experience difficult goodbyes.
There are times when life seems to hang on a single decision. For Abraham there was no mistaking Gods’ voice, there was no plea bargaining, he simply obeyed. Can you imagine the excruciating sadness Abraham must have felt on that three day journey to Mount Moriah? How would he say goodbye?
In Genesis 22:4-5 we read that, 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.“
Abraham was assured that in some miraculous way God would intervene. Now, the ultimate sacrifice was ready, but the puzzled young Isaac asked his dad, “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering dad?” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Genesis 22:7-8 When Abraham was about to take the life of his son the angel of the Lord intervened saying,
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.” Genesis 22:12-13
“When darkness seems the deepest, the most radiant light is set to emerge. At the end of our hope, we find the brightest beginning of fulfillment.” CW Cowman
God didn’t want Abraham’s son He wanted Abraham’s heart.
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death. Hebrews 11:17-19
Have you ever been stripped of all props and securities that you thought were essential and there was no way out of your situation and nothing you could do? Nietzsche said a man can undergo torture if he knows the why of his life. What’s far more significant is in knowing the who of my life. Who do I live for and who loves and cares for me?
We might think that once we let go of that something or someone we’ll have nothing.
When we do we let go of that which God asks us to, He will give us more of Himself.
CH Spurgeon well said, “Whoever you may be and wherever you may be, remember –God is all you may ever want, is everywhere you need Him to be, and can do everything you could ever want Him to do.
“When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw, and what he couldn’t do, but on what God said he would do… But it’s not just Abraham, it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless.” Romans 4:18, 20, 24-25
