User blog:SouthWriter/Trusting God Fully

Believing is Seeing  Genesis 22--26

The final test of Abraham's faith would be the greatest. God had proven Himself to be more than a voice and providential care in the year of Isaac's birth -- judgment on the pagan cities of the plain and the miracle of life in Isaac. Now God would test Abraham to the limit of his faith. He asked for the life of Isaac!

Child sacrifice had become common among the Canaanites, and especially among the Philistines with whom Abraham had a pact. But those who knew the true God, the God of Noah, such a practice was abhorrent. It would be inconsistent for the true God to ask for the murder of an innocent child! But nevertheless, the voice returned: "take Isaac ... and offer him..." This time, though, there seems to have been no equivocations. Everything he needed was born along by his servants for the 50 mile journey north to the land where Abraham had lived a half-century earlier: the hill country of Moriah (the place "shown by Yahweh").

His faith was demonstrated to his servants when he told them "I and the lad will ... come again to you. " The very same God that could bring a life from a barren womb could bring it back from certain death on an altar of worship! And so, he went up on the mountain, telling Isaac that "the LORD will provide" even while binding him and lighting the fire!

Large enough to defend himself, Isaac submitted instead. Abraham, had committed them both into the hands of the Creator of the universe. There was no turning back. True to his word, the LORD did provide, finally showing himself as the Angel of the LORD. There nearby was a ram, stuck in the brush. Yahweh had provided, and it was finally proven that Abraham's faith was the real thing.

When God had proven Himself faithful, Abraham would not allow Isaac to marry any of the Canaanite women who Abimelech and others certainly had offered in political and economic moves to join forces with the powerful shepherd prince. The people around him did not know Yahweh the way he did. They worshipped fanciful ideas made manifest in images of stone, precious metals and jewels of great beauty. They practiced all kinds of immoral behaviour based on assumptions of causality where none existed.

And so, he sent a servant to fetch a bride for his son from among those who at least nominally believed in the true God: his cousins! He did not trust Isaac to go find the woman, but instead He put his faith in God to bring the right person to him -- a woman who would come willingly! And so Rebecca (also spelled Rebekah) came to be the mother of the nations promised long ago. Abraham would see his grandchildren before he died.

What has this to do with us four millennia later? Well, we do not have to wait to see God do miracles, for He came to earth in a miracle, resisted all manner of common temptations that face us daily , and then rose from the dead. And then, to top it all off, He lives among us daily, guiding us one step at a time until we will live by sight instead of faith.