Day 2
Genesis
I came away with the overwhelming question of "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"
God was testing Abraham's faith, in asking him to sacrifice the son he waited all his life to be blessed with. It made me think about what I would be willing to put on the "offering table" for the Lord. My own son? In some ways, I feel I have. I've surrendered Brandon to God because there's just no way my husband and I have kept that boy alive through all his seizures and falls from seizures. God has. And in a sense with our oldest son in the Navy. We've had to (reluctantly) come to terms with how he is not "ours" - how we have had to give his life to the Lord for the kind of protection only the Lord could give anyway!
That offering thing is really a tough test of faith in all other matters. What in my life would I not want to give up for God? Would I give up being what I've always dreamed of being - if I felt God was calling me to do that? Would I give up the chance my son with autism and seizures could be healed if God asked me to put that on the "offering table" for him? Would I give up my Navy son's dream of becoming what he has dreamed of becoming for years now if God said I had to give his dream up as an offering?
Dang. Why you gotta hit below the belt God?
The faith Abraham must have had in just obeying. In offering up to God for a sacrifice, the very blessing he prayed all his life for!
I just have to type that again. Abraham, in faith and obedience, has his only son Issac on the offering table, tied on top of a pile of wood. He has his knife ready for that sacrifice!
God stopped Abraham and said, "Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." And Abraham called that place, "The Lord will provide". The Lord then said, "You will be blessed because you have obeyed me."
It's always a sacrifice to obey the Lord.
But when you truly obey God - the rewards are always worth it.
