Beyond Fear, Beyond Pain
One of the topics I love to study in Scripture is the faith of Abraham. Today let’s draw a few principles to strengthen us from the situation with Isaac and the sacrifice. We all face testings of various types in life, many of which we are never quite sure why they happened.
Abraham’s situation was obviously unusual and Scripture does not give us all the details. God obviously would not command someone to do something against His own character. This had to be extremely confusing in addition to the horror of the request. One can only imagine the mental and spiritual struggle Abraham must have gone through on his 3-day journey to the mountain. When Abraham saw the mountain where he was to make the sacrifice, he told his servants, “We will worship and we will come back to you.” In that time of crisis and struggle, Abraham’s faith won out. Though Abraham had waited years for this son that he loved, he trusted God enough in this difficult test to believe that both he and Isaac would return alive.
Notice another important lesson from Abraham. Though Abraham was obeying God, things happened that made it appear that God’s promises would not come true. Isaac was already on the altar and the knife was raised before the angel stopped him! Abraham did not obey based on how hopeless the situation looked or how he felt. He must have felt horrible pain and fear, being asked to sacrifice his son, but Abraham trusted God to know best and still believed that God would keep His promises.
Just as Abraham trusted God during the biggest crisis of his life, one that would have caused much fear, we each can trust God in our crises, resist the fear, choose to go forward in faith, trusting the character and promises of God.
Increasing in Christ,
Alisa J. Linn
