Awkward Family Moments, Week 2 Day 3 Genesis 22

Awkward Family Moments, Week 2 Day 3 Genesis 22

Some passages of Scripture are harder to deal with than others.  And facing them head on requires a certain amount of, well I’m not exactly what it requires.  Honesty?  Bravery?  Skepticism?  Whatever, here goes.  And fair warning.  The title of my blog is “You Can’t Say That In Public!” but I might end up being offensive to Christians in this one.  

Christians have certain verses that we love, especially when it comes to sharing our faith with others.  “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son that whoever believes in Him would have eternal life.”  “Behold I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with them and they with me.”  My apologies to all you Biblical scholars out there if these quotes aren’t 100% accurate.  These are from memory, the Leonard Memory Version of the New Testament if you will.

But as far as sharing the faith, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go the region of Moriah.  Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” is most definitely not one of the verses that we use to share our faith.  God often asks difficult things, but sacrifice his only son!  And Abraham, he was ready to do it!  And showing my somewhat irreverent side here, I think that it’s pretty safe to say if Child Protect Services has existed back in the day there might well not have been a Jewish faith.  And it would follow no Christian faith either since Christianity really only makes sense from the context of its Jewish heritage.

Thank God that God stopped him.  And maybe God never really intended for Abraham to sacrifice his son.  But to even ask him to do it seems harsh at best and down right cruel.  And I would think that Abraham’s willingness to go down that road had to lead to some pretty awkward Thanksgiving (okay, not Thanksgiving but whatever they celebrated) family gatherings after the fact.  “Hey Dad.”  “Yeah Isaac?”  “Remember that time up on the mountain in Moriah when you were going to kill me?”  “Yeah Isaac, boy those sure were fun times, huh?”  “Ah, sure Dad, swell times.  Right…”  And there I go being irreverent again.

So what am I to do with all of this?

Well, it’s clear that Abraham had great faith.  He was promised he would be the Father of Nations.  And after waiting years, decades to see that promise fulfilled, he was willing to destroy, to kill what looked like the only way that promise would come to pass.  I pray I’m never asked to demonstrate my faith in anyway remotely like that.

And God wasn’t asking Abraham to consider doing anything that God wasn’t willing to do Himself.  Not only was God willing to do the same, He actually did it when He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the Cross for all our sins.  God was did what He stopped Abraham from doing.

But I’ll confess that with all of that, I still really struggle with the fact that God would even ask.   Sometimes I don’t understand God at all. 

When I was driving to work today I passed a field that was covered in a thick layer of ground fog.  I grew up in Norco, California.  Anyone who grew up in Norco knows about fog.  They use to get this fog so thick that you literally could not see across the street.  No school today, ha ha!  But when I drove by the field today I was high enough above the fog that I could see down through it.  If I had been in the field, I wouldn’t have been able to see very far.  From above the field I could see right through it to the ground below.

I think that’s what it’s like, the difference between me and God.  I’m stuck on the ground, groping around in a fog, often unable to even see across the street.  God is above the fog, sees everything clearly.  Knows where I need to go, knows what I need to do.  And He’ll tell me, but it’s hard walking around in the fog.  It’s easy to lose your way.

So, I don’t really have an answer for this one.  At least no answer other than the standard Christian go to answer, “You’ve got to have faith.”  And I’ll admit in this case it seems a little weak.  I’m just not entirely sure if it’s my answer that’s weak or my faith.

God, I struggle with much of your Word.  Especially today’s passage.  I’ve heard sermons on the great faith of Abraham and I’ll agree that’s true.  But at want cost?  Seems like sometimes You ask for a lot.  When people talk about becoming a Christian they’ll say that it will make you life easier.  Things go better with God.  And I’ve found that to be true, most of the time.  But at times what You ask is oh so very hard and seems so unfair.  And so I’ll cling.  I’ll cling to You.  I’ll cling to the sacrifices that You have made, especially Your Son.  I’ll cling to Your love.  And I’ll cling to my faith, however thin it might seem.  Amen

Leonard