Genesis 22:1-14 Faith: Trusting God with Everything

Okay, This is going to have to be quick (hopefully) because I have to get some sleep before work. But I started this 30 day Bible Reading Plan that has different topics. I chose the topic of Faith, because I started reading a new book yesterday called When You Don't See His Plan: The Nadine Hennesey Story by Nadine Hennesey with Rebecca Baker.  I got through the first chapter while waiting for my clothes to dry and I found myself longing to have a faith like the faith I was reading about, just in that first chapter. 

I imagine that my faith has always been rather small, and I don't want it to be that way anymore.  Lack of faith immobilizes people, not just to do God's work, but in many areas of their life.  Say I never leave my current job because I'm making more money than I've ever made in my life, I'm not struggling to make ends meet. I finally have a savings account, I'm helping my parents out... I'm supporting myself quite well.... But my job is not where I want to be permanently.  Will I ever be able to leave this job?  Not if I don't have the faith that God can and will take care of me no matter where I am. You get the point.  I want to increase my faith.  Through Prayer and Study, It will happen.

So... onto Genesis 22:1-14

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”“Here I am,” he replied.
² Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
³ Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. ⁴ On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. ⁵ 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.”
⁶ Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, ⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
⁸ Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
⁹ When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
¹² “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.”
¹³ Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
 

I wanted to post the passage for easy reference. :-)  So I was reading through this and there were a few things that stuck out to me.  Since I seem to have a good memory for Scripture... or maybe it is just from my Bible Quizzing days... I recalled a few things from other parts of Scripture that I want to mention.  For Example:

There seems to be a bit of problem with Gods instructions to Abraham because just a chapter earlier, God said this to Abraham:

But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. (Genesis 21:12)
 

Dead men dont give offspring... do they? (Well, maybe with todays technology it might be possible) But the point is: this would have been something that set off an alarm in my mind.  I imagine myself even arguing with God, "But God, You SAID!"  But Abraham doesn't do that.  Actually, Scripture doesn't tell us what Abrahams thoughts were, at least not in this passage (more on that in a moment). It simply says that Abraham left early the next morning to carry out God's request. 

What was Abraham thinking? This was his son!  The same same born to him and Sarah in their old age, whom God had promised that through him would become a great nation. Had God changed his mind? His plans?  Was he incapable? Was he a liar? No. Was Abraham submitting to the idea that God gives and God takes away, and for some reason God had decided to take Isaac away?   No, I don't think that's it either.   We get the bigger picture to know that God was testing Abraham, but what must have been going on in Abrahams mind?

I think we find our answer to this question in the faith hall of fame: Hebrews 11:17-19

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, ¹⁸ even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned ¹⁹ Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death
 

 This is a faith beyond the idea that God would raise his son, but a faith that God would still hold true to his previous promises enabled him to believe God would raise his son.

So I've been pondering this faith.  How does someone come to have such faith?   I reasoned it out this way:  Faith comes from trust. Abraham trusted God. We trust because we believe we are loved, and when we believe we are loved we those who love us hold good intentions toward us.  Love comes from knowing God.  Knowing God comes from having a relationship with Him. Our Faith is expressed through obedience.


I'd like to explore this more, and maybe even write out a small group lesson or Bible study guide on it, but, I'll have to ponder this more later, because I'm now looking at 6 hours of sleep.  So that's all for now.

Trust in the Lord

Do you ever have those moments when you have a revelation about something, and then you feel kind of dumb about it because you get that "I should have known better" thing going on?  

Yeah... that happened to me today. 

The revelation was pretty simple, as I was driving home from work, I was listening to the radio and it was one of those quick ads on WFRN 104.7 where they give the verse quickly and get the point across in a few sentences. I didn't hear the quick message because I got distracted by the verse.   It was Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (NRSV)
(Just a quick sidenote, The radio used the NIV, but I am loving the NRSV translation).

Do you see what is happening here?

This verse is like a blue print!!!!  If the goal given us in this verse is to have our paths made straight, we are given instructions with what we need to do to achieve that goal. First, by trusting in the Lord with all our heart, and also by acknowledging God in everything.

So trusting God can be really hard sometimes, especially when your hope of a future seems dim. At times I would venture to say that acknowledging God in everything can be easier than trusting him with all your heart.  How does a person continue to trust God so much when they feel like they are constantly given reasons and experiences that undermine the idea that we are to fully trust God?

And so I realized I've been reading the verse more like this:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

How can I brush over such a vital part of the verse?   I'm going to stick by the idea that this verse is a blue print because  it really seems to work.  That part of the verse that got overlooked is the part of the verse that tells me HOW to do this whole trust thing.

When we recognize that we can't look to our own understanding (or insight), it is then that we are able to view the situation from a different point of view that could very well alter our (subconsious?) response to trusting God with everything or not.  

This is the way I see it. If it is my desire to get married, and I believe God had shown me that marriage will be a part of my future, but I'm not dating anyone, and I haven't been dating anyone for a long time... and come to think of it, I'm not really meeting anyone who is a good prospect to be a Godly husband.... I might begin to doubt what I believe God had revealed to me.

But that's because my thinking is: I'm not dating anyone, I don't see anyone who is "God-approved" for me to date in the future.  Maybe God didn't reveal that marriage would be a part of my life.  God doesn't care about my desires.Therefore, I can't trust him with my heart.

Wow. But when we realize that we don't always know why God allows the things he does, we can start to make a different perspective. 

Maybe God is keeping me single because I have some growing or healing to do (Or maybe my beloved does). Or maybe  God knows that I want to finish college first (or fill in the blank).  Maybe I'm not walking in obedience to God and He is waiting on me. Maybe it's just not time yet, and we will never know the reason why. 

But whether the issue is marriage or some other desire, the realization that our own way of understanding things is hardly adequate for interpreting whether God is trustworthy.  His ways are not our ways.  He sees beyond what we can see.

Sometimes we have to have this realization 5 or 6 times before it sinkes in.

We live like we don't need God.

I have no desire to be here (at Bethel). I have no desire to finish my degree. But it's not just a lack of desire, I desire to be somewhere else. I desire to be doing something besides what I'm doing right now.

What's to be said for a change of heart? If I stay at Bethel I what do I gain? If I leave, what do I lose? On the other hand... What do I gain by leaving? What do I lose by staying?

Here we go again.

What is gained if my ministry stays in the church? What is lost? Doing youth ministry doesn't necessarily mean that I have to do ministry in the walls of a building... but I wonder how much more effective ministry would be if I just did life with people... The way Halter and Smay describe it in The Tangible Kingdom.

No programs. No agenda. Just life.

I want that.

What purposelessness overtakes my present plan. Why?

I want to live spontaneously. I want to live the daring adventure of being totally sold out for Christ. I want to be radical, off the wall, fully committed to the God I love.

I don't want to have a back up plan...

You know what breaks my heart? We... as Christians, or American Christians... or I don't even know... don't have it in us to live radically.

Is it a faith issue?

Why are we so addicted to security?

I'm not seeking that we should be irresponsible, only that we should live in radical dependence on God, and we don't.

If Scripture says:

"Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Matthew 6:26)

Then:

Why do we have savings accounts? Why do we have emergency funds? Why do we have life insurance? Why do we save up for retirement?

If Scripture says:

"Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12)

Then:

Why is it that we don't even try to heal the sick or to cast out demons or move mountains? Jesus goes on to say, right after this very passage: "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it." (John 14:13-14)

If Scripture says:

"Jesus answered him, 'You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above...'" (John 19:11)

Then:
Why are we so flippin' worried and horrified that Obama is going to be our next president? Even if another Hitler should rise up, what is that to us? If we know Christ then we know what we ought to do. We need to pray for our leaders. We need to pray for our country. We need to share the love of Christ with the world.

You know... Sometimes God doesn't seem real to me. Sometimes, at best, he seems absent and univolved. But I think that's because I live as though I don't need him. He is the genie who might grant my wish if I pray long enough, hard enough, and do the right stuff.

I'm so tired of that kind of living. I want to really, truly live like I need God in my life, because I do, and I wish there were other people who would do the same. I wish there were other people around me who would committ to living radically.

I don't think many people realize that their faith does effect others around them.

I don't know if this blogpost is really going anywhere right now. I just know that something has got to change.