Word of Encouragement (02/17/2022)

There is no prayer in this passage. Well, that’s not exactly true. We have spoken of prayer as a dialogue with God. In that sense, Abraham answering God, “Here I am,” can be viewed as his prayer. What kind of prayer is this? We have seen that prayer is more than just petitions. Praise and thanksgiving, as well as lament and grievance and protest, can be viewed as prayer, too. Prayer is any thoughts or words that we direct to God. Here, when God calls Abraham by his name, he answers by saying, “Here I am.” What kind of prayer is that? It is like calling on the name of God to start our prayer, expressing our readiness to engage God in prayer.

What is interesting in this passage is Abraham’s lack of verbal response to God’s following command to sacrifice Isaac. The pattern of prayer-dialogue—God speaking and Abraham replying, which was at the beginning of this exchange—is noticeably broken. In the place of Abraham’s verbal reply to God’s command—a protest or a question as we used to see—we have, “So Abraham rose early in the morning....” The gravity of the command, followed by Abraham’s silent actions, increases the tension of this situation. We can’t imagine what went through Abraham’s mind at that time. The Book of Hebrews gives us an insight: “He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead...” (11:19). All those years of walking with God, with all the ups and downs, were not in vain. He believed that He, who gave Isaac to him and Sarah by a miracle when they were as good as dead (Heb. 11:12), could also raise Isaac from the dead, too.

But we can imagine what kind of agonizing mental process he had to go through first before he arrived at that conclusion. His initial reaction to God’s command must have been a great shock. He probably couldn’t believe his ears. This was so out of character that God should ask him to do something like this! Doubts might have raised their ugly heads that all that had happened to him after God called him were all just a cruel joke to God, including Isaac’s miraculous birth! We know how that is. Someone can be nice to us all along and makes a mistake to offend us. What do we do? We are tempted to allow that one mistake to erase all the good things he has done for us and see him as a horrible person, aren’t we? (Of course, we may be dealing with a swindler but I’m talking about someone we have had a relationship with for a long time.)

Once we fall into that kind of suspicion, there is no end. It distorts everything and rewrites the whole history. Maybe Abraham realized how dangerous and illogical that was. He remembered the tenderness with which God spoke to him all along, how He rescued him from all kinds of dangers, how He blessed him with riches, how He gave him a son through Sarah, etc.! He also remembered God’s solemn promises to bless him and his descendants with oaths and covenant signs. He bore one of the signs on his body—the sign of circumcision! Did all these covenant oaths mean nothing to God? Was God lying through all these solemn vows? That was a possibility. Anything is possible in this strange world! But if God was that evil, what could Abraham do? What hope did he have to escape from the clutches of such an evil and malicious God?

But that was the most unlikely scenario, a monster created by the dark abyss of never-ending suspicion. There were other possibilities. This shocking command from God might be a test of his faith, to see whether he loved God more than Isaac. He could not deny that the God, who brought Isaac into being out of Abraham and Sarah, who were as good as dead, could raise him from the dead as well. He had to acknowledge that he did not understand the mind of God. But he also had to acknowledge that the God he had come to know was not evil and wicked. So, he woke up early in the morning to carry out God’s command.

Are you facing a painful situation, which tempts you to doubt God’s goodwill toward you? Is Satan using it to tempt you to think badly of God, to make you ignore all the good things He has done for you, to make you forget how God has delivered you out of so many dangers like this before? Are you tempted to deny the love of God, which He demonstrates through the death of His Son for your salvation while you were sinners? If you deny THAT, what hope do you have? May the cross of Jesus Christ speak peace to your troubled souls and help you carry out His commands in ready obedience!

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