Abraham's Sacrifice

K so this song has been on repeat all day...or at least it has when I've been home. I found the video(its kind of cheesy bible acting but the song is so good). I know that it's Christmas and I should be playing Christmas music, but this song is pertinent to my life. After some great conversation at Starbucks this morning I've come to a realization about my life, the Lord and my ever present issue of trust.

Genesis 22. Some call it the testing of Abraham's faith. I think it goes way deeper than that. The Lord asks Abraham to go and sacrifice his only son, Isaac, and so Abraham wakes up early the next morning to do just that. I wonder if he slept that night. I wonder if fear was pitted in his stomach the whole way up the mountain. Because the Lord wasn't just asking him to sacrifice his son...the Lord was asking him to sacrifice His promise; His covenant with Abraham. When Abraham walked up that mountain he knew that at the top he would have to sacrifice the very thing that was supposed to make this whole promise happen. Did those thoughts run through his mind? Were there moments of anger, despair, fear, uncertainty? If it had been me in his place I probably would have grieved the loss of this dream the whole way up the mountain. We call Abraham a man of great faith, but I'm pretty sure he was human, and maybe deep down inside he thought God was being completely irrational. Because if he killed Isaac then how on earth was he was supposed to be a father of generations?

But still he went and did what he was told. Isn't that all any of us can ever do? Simply be faithful with what the Lord has given us? It's not ours to hold onto in the first place. And who are we to think that by holding on to it, it's actually going to be done any better.

The Lord has asked so much of me right now, has taken so much from me, is doing so much in me right now, and a lot of it is about letting go. Letting go of the dreams he's given me, the things I want to do, the calling that I've worked my entire life for. I guess you could say I'm in the middle of grieving this right now..definitely explains some of my emotionalism lately;)....and I'm not going to lie..it's really painful. Because this dream, it's been the Lord's promise to me my entire life. It's been confirmed over and over, it's what has kept me going during hard times. This promise is what I've been working towards my whole life...and that's just it...I've been working. I've been trying to make it happen on my own, holding onto it so tightly that I haven't even been willing to give it back to the One who gave it to me in the first place.

Abraham tried to make the promise happen on his own too...and it just ended in ridiculous amounts of drama...clearly did not work. Maybe that's what Abraham was thinking too on his way up the mountain that morning. Maybe he was thinking about all the ways that he tried making the promise come to life on his own. Maybe thinking about what he did and his mistakes made him ask more questions. If the Lord really does take Isaac, then how is it really going to be done? because I clearly couldn't even make it happen. And then maybe these questions ended finally in peace.

That peace does come. It has to come. When we've reached the end of ourselves. When the Lord has pulled everything out from under us, leaving us with nothing. Leaving us with absolutely nothing to work with. There comes a point where we have to let go. We have to surrender and sacrifice everything we're holding onto. We have to reach a point of peace and rest within ourselves that what we're letting go is not ours to take care of. It's not ours to do. It's not ours to fulfill. If the Lord wants it done..he'll get it done.

For me, that rest comes when I realize that I'm not in control and there's nothing I can do about it. Lately the Lord has been literally prying my hands open and forcing me to let go. He's making my timing, my things, my doing, my logic, my wisdom, my desires, my dreams become His. And that's the whole trust issue. Coming to place of peace and rest that the Lord really is going to take care of it, to take care of me, and really believing it to very core of who I am.

Abraham had to have reached that place of rest, knowing that despite what happens to Isaac the Lord will have to provide another way for His promise to be fulfilled. Because Abraham clung to the knowledge of that promise with all he had. He knew it was from the Lord and so he knew it was good, it was real, and it was true. He may never see it come to fruition, or even totally know how the Lord would choose to do it, but he knew that the Lord would because the Lord promised.

And so despite my grieving and the painful spot that I'm in, I have to believe that what the Lord is doing is good because he made a promise to me. No, I have no idea what it looks like, how it will be done, when it will be done, but its not mine to do, its not mine to worry about, its not mine to hold onto.
But I won't forget them. I won't forget those dreams. Because those dreams are His promise to me.