(editor's note - Tony Pitrat has offered to share his gifts with our blog. This is his first entry and . . .wow.)It had to be hot.
Abraham was an old man, his joints ached and his fingers bled.
That was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.
He searched the hilltop for stones for an altar, carrying stone after stone after stone - piling them higher and higher. Soon he would need wood, lots of it. He had to gather that next. God wanted a sacrifice.
Abraham – a man who had left everything for his God- just heard from Him again. “Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I'll point out to you." (Gen 22:2, MSG).
Abraham took his precious son and walked for three hot, dusty days looking for the place where God would have him kill his son.
Isaac. Abraham waited more than a hundred years for his son. He was his future, Gods special show of favor. God had promised to make him a father to many nations through Isaac.
Now God was asking Abraham to place him on an altar and end that promise.
Abraham had to decide. Is there something bigger going on here? Do I trust God?
The roles we fill in God's story are often times hard, and many times the uncertainty of life is unbearable. In the prologue to one of my favorite books: EPIC, The Story God Is Telling and the Role That Is Yours To Play, John Eldrige talks about how when seek to rationalize the world in terms that put us in the center of the story, we end up exhausted, lost and faithless:
That was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.
He searched the hilltop for stones for an altar, carrying stone after stone after stone - piling them higher and higher. Soon he would need wood, lots of it. He had to gather that next. God wanted a sacrifice.
Abraham – a man who had left everything for his God- just heard from Him again. “Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I'll point out to you." (Gen 22:2, MSG).
Abraham took his precious son and walked for three hot, dusty days looking for the place where God would have him kill his son.
Isaac. Abraham waited more than a hundred years for his son. He was his future, Gods special show of favor. God had promised to make him a father to many nations through Isaac.
Now God was asking Abraham to place him on an altar and end that promise.
Abraham had to decide. Is there something bigger going on here? Do I trust God?
The roles we fill in God's story are often times hard, and many times the uncertainty of life is unbearable. In the prologue to one of my favorite books: EPIC, The Story God Is Telling and the Role That Is Yours To Play, John Eldrige talks about how when seek to rationalize the world in terms that put us in the center of the story, we end up exhausted, lost and faithless:
“What is this drama that we’ve been dropped into the middle of? If there is a God, what sort of story is he telling here? At some point we all begin to wonder if Macbeth wasn’t right after all – is life a tale “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. No wonder we keep losing heart."
Do you think Abraham lost heart on that trip? Did his stomach turn over for three days? Did he weep those nights watching his son drift off to sleep, knowing that every second of sleep was one less they would spend together? Do you think he cried out as Jesus did “Take this cup from me?” (Matt 26:39)
I think he probably did, but this I KNOW: he said: “Yes, Lord, I love you, and I trust you. Take my son.”
I don’t think I could do it.
Abraham was willing to give up Isaac simply because he believed that Gods story demanded it. That act of faith has echoed through history, and began a chapter that has led to this place.
[God] took [Abraham] outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.”
I think he probably did, but this I KNOW: he said: “Yes, Lord, I love you, and I trust you. Take my son.”
I don’t think I could do it.
Abraham was willing to give up Isaac simply because he believed that Gods story demanded it. That act of faith has echoed through history, and began a chapter that has led to this place.
[God] took [Abraham] outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.”
This is us, you and me, the product of a faithful man and a faithful God. This is a story of the reconciliation between God and a fallen broken world. Through Abraham came Isaac and then Jacob (father of the 12 tribes of Israel) and from Israel came Jesus. Through Jesus we became part of the story of God. The story of Abraham is one of God’s opening chapters in an unfolding epic story that we do not understand. But Abraham got it. Abraham believed. Abraham knew what Paul was talking about.
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NIV)
I pray that you will see that you are a very important part of God's story; a story that needs your character. Your story is one of the critical pieces of the plot, and it must be written in ink the color of your faith, faith that trusts God to keep His promises, that trusts God to make all things work for good."
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NIV)
I pray that you will see that you are a very important part of God's story; a story that needs your character. Your story is one of the critical pieces of the plot, and it must be written in ink the color of your faith, faith that trusts God to keep His promises, that trusts God to make all things work for good."
What areas of your life have you not given over to God?
What part of your story does God still need to write?
Things to think about:
- What do you think your part is in God's Story?
- Do you feel like a footnote sometimes, or maybe comic relief? Why is that?
- If life was a movie with God as the Hero and you were His trusty sidekick, how would you live differently?
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