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

Life is a Movie, We are just the Actors

Light. Camera. Action. Places everybody, we are about to begin filming scene one.

Everyone loves a good movie, right? One with a good cast and a well-written plot. Some good special effects usually add to the excitement as well. As a kid, I always wanted to be in a movie. So much so that we were always coming up with new video ideas that we could then film and act out. What if our lives were in fact a movie? What role would you be playing? Would you be the lead role, or the supporting character in someone else's storyline? If we think about it, God has written a great script for us to follow, even though we don't know our lines yet. He has set the scene and placed the right actors for the part to play out his plotline. Like any great movie, though, some of the greatest scenes are those are improvised and not in the original draft. Few scenarios that are coming my thoughts are, obviously, from Star Wars. Han Solo, about to be lowered into carbonite, has just been told by Leia that she loves him. According to the script, He was supposed to respond back by saying, "I love you too". Instead, he says,"I Know." The directors and producers thought that fit so well, they kept it in and it is one of the most popular lines from the movie. Another scene is in A New Hope, after Luke and Han have stolen the stormtrooper uniforms. Mark Hamill, thinking the cameras had stopped rolling, says,"I can't see a thing in this helmet." Again, the writers liked it, so it stayed. What I am trying to portray here is that sometimes, we do something off script. We turn left, when we should have turned right, and make things up as we go. When this happens, God just writes this turn into the final draft and sets up for the next scene. What do you do though if you are just the supporting friend who gives advice to the lead in times of trouble. The one who has to lift back up the Lead when things are going wrong. Are you prepared to offer tough advice to get the wheels spinning again in the mind of your buddy. The main actor doesn't need someone who isn't afraid to say the things they need to hear. In fact, these scenes usually start out pretty quiet and as you, the support, is talking, the music begins to build and you can begin to see the light bulbs go off in his eyes. I like these scenes a lot. They remind me that though I face hard situations sometimes, there will always be someone there who will help raise me back up and get me back on my feet. Naturally, that person is the writer and director of my story, God the Father himself. In times when I feel down, he restores my soul and strengthens me in areas I feel like I have failed in. He will lift me out of my slumber and place me back on solid ground. And here's the thing, I don't want to take center stage so to speak, if God has to take the back seat. I would rather have God be my Lead and I follow closely behind him. My movie will be awful if I don't have a good writer. And believe me, Spielberg or Nolan or Abrams will never come up with anything greater than the story God has for your life.

Adam Semple- A Young Man on a Mission From God.