As a parent, Genesis 22 is a difficult read. Abraham had such faith in God that he followed through to the point of tying up his son and preparing his knife to slay him (v. 9-10). Do we have Abraham’s faith? Today, God is not asking us to slay our children as a sacrifice to him, but he does ask us to slay other things- things that we may consider beloved. What if he asks us to put it on the altar of sacrifice? My daughter is doing a media fast this month. Could it be laying media on the altar? Time-Driven things? Material things? Identity-Driven things? Relationships? Abraham was willing to surrender his most beloved possession to God.
Anything for you, God, everything for you, God. It’s all yours. I’m all yours. Is this our cry today? Do we echo the cry of Abraham that God witnessed through his actions? The ram was in the thicket. Abraham didn’t notice a ram- the provision. He was not looking for provision; he remained in obedience. Abraham set out on this journey to offer his son a burnt offering according to the will of God. The text says that God was testing Abraham (v. 1). Abraham had a succession of difficult decisions toward his faith in God when we can only imagine that his flesh had to be interrogating his mind to resist, to rationalize, to override the will of God with the desire of self.
Isaac was old enough to understand the ritual of sacrifice. He understood that they had everything in place but the lamb (v. 7). One can only imagine what this moment was like in the mind of Isaac, who at some point realized that he was the sacrifice. If Abraham heard the Angel of the Lord call from heaven saying, “Do not lay your hand on the lad,” then surely Isaac must have heard this too. Our relationship with God as parents also impacts our children’s relationship with God. They will grow and mature in their faith in Him and their relationship with Him, but they develop an understanding of who God is in relation to His people through our ability to express and act on our faith in Him as parental figures. Undoubtedly, this act forever singed Isaac’s mind. Often, it is radical moments of witnessing one’s faith or exercising one’s own that strengthen one’s perseverance in the faith in the face of darkness and hardship. A single moment could stir the fire for a lifetime.
The beauty is in the provision. Abraham named the place The-Lord-Will-Provide, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided (v. 14).” The text doesn’t say that Abraham prayed for an alternative provision, but instead, he focused on doing what God had asked, and God subsequently provided. The provision was in his obedience. We may not know how or where- none of the logistics of the provision- but we KNOW God. We know Him as our provider. At any step along the journey, the ram could have presented itself, but it seemed at the last possible second when Isaac would be slain that the provision became visible; at the appointed time, it became accessible to Abraham. When God calls us to something or somewhere, we focus on obeying Him, and the provision is made available to us not a second too late.