ABRAHAM'S SURRENDER..... AND MINE

ABRAHAM’S SURRENDER . . .
AND MINE

READING: Genesis 22:1 – 19

VERSE: “Take your son, your only son, whom you love — Isaac — and . . . sacrifice him . . . as a burnt offering.” —Genesis 19:2

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE READINGS: Hebrews 11:8 – 19; James 2:21 – 24

How many times I’ve followed in Abraham’s footsteps up the side of Mount Moriah to that place of surrender . . . every time I’ve released a child to circumstances beyond my control and with an uncertain outcome.

Sometimes when I’m on the way, my fears grow too big, and I stop before I get to the place of surrender . . . the powerful what-ifs make me turn back. So instead of an openhanded release, I wrap my fingers more tightly around my treasure, assuming for an absurd instant that I can protect my child from some circumstance or control some uncontrollable outcome. I cannot. I have only taken a detour on the path to the place of surrender.

. . . God has a divine love for our children that’s even greater than our human love for them; he will never leave them; and he has a plan for their lives that’s bigger and better than our expectations. Relinquishing our children means acknowledging God knows better than we do.

. . . Surrendering our feelings is essential as we seek to relinquish our treasures to God’s greater plan. Abraham must have struggled greatly with his feelings as he took Isaac on the three-day journey toward the place of surrender. Yet his feelings did not guide his actions; his obedience to God did.

. . . Just as God gave Isaac back to Abraham, he returns our treasure to us. We may not receive it back in the same exact way, however, but in a better way from the Father who promises, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 18:18). As Jim Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”