Awkward Obedience

"So, how was your day? Did you have a good day at work?" "Oh, you know. Same ol' same ol'. I heard from God today. He told me I was to go up on this mountain and make an altar. Oh, and Isaac was to come with me. Anyway, we head out with a couple servants and when we got to the foot of the mountain I commanded them to stay there and the boy and I would go to the top. We made the altar as directed and, you're going to love this part. I began to grab hold of our son, our only son, and I tied him to the altar. Of course, I could see a little bit of fear in his eyes, but I am his father and he trusted me enough to know that I must know what I was doing. So, our son is tied altar, I raise my knife to begin the sacrifice, when suddenly, God is like, "Abraham, stop. Don't do it." I breathed a quick sigh of relief, because I really didn't want to come back without your son and explain what happened, but God had told me to do something so I had to obey. Anyhoo, we look up and see a ram who had gotten his horns stuck in some thicket. So I quickly untied Isaac and together we completed the sacrifice."

I bet you can imagine as well as I can the expression on Sarah's face as Abraham recalled this story. Good chance she got a little upset with him. "So, you were going to just kill our boy, the child who you waited 100 years for? I get that God told you to, but did you question it at all, or did you just blindly trust God's plan. You are truly a man of great faith, Abraham, to trust God with the life of your only son.

This story is a beautiful picture of what Christ would do a few thousand years later. God the Father took his son, tied him to a wooden cross, and sacrificed him as a living sacrifice for you and for me. To take away the sins of the world and to bring us back to the Father. Imagine the thoughts running through Abraham's mind as they made this difficult journey. The mountain Moriah was a distance of 3 days away. 3 days that Abraham awoke next to his son. With every morning, he could have turned around and returned home. He could probably see the excitement on Isaac's face as he was getting ready to watch his father sacrifice to God, all the while knowing this could be his last adventure. But, he continued knowing God had a plan bigger than himself. At any point during Christ's 3-year journey, he could have thrown in the towel and not completed his assignment. Yet he finished his task so that we might be able to live with him.

Has God ever asked you to do something so unbelievable that you have no option but to trust him?
Maybe it is time for you to do what he has instructed, because he can see the end of the story and he knows what steps you need take in order to get to that point.

Adam Semple- A Young Man on a Mission From God