Surrendering Isaac

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That place. That place that Abraham was brought to. Oh the great, great sorrow he must have felt. 

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"Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

² Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

³ Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. ⁴ On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. ⁵ He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, ⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

⁸ Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

⁹ When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

¹² “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

¹³ Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, 

“On the mountain of theLord it will be provided.”

¹⁵ The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time ¹⁶ and said, 

“I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸ and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

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I like how A.W. Tozer puts it in his book, " The Pursuit of God".

"The sacred writer spares us a close-up of the agony that night on

the slopes near Beersheba when the aged man had it out with his God, but

respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive

wrestling alone under the stars. Possibly not again until a Greater than

Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit

a human soul. If only the man himself might have been allowed to die.

That would have been easier a thousand times, for he was old now, and to

die would have been no great ordeal for one who had walked so long with

God. Besides, it would have been a last sweet pleasure to let his

dimming vision rest upon the figure of his stalwart son who would live

to carry on the Abrahamic line and fulfill in himself the promises of

God made long before in Ur of the Chaldees."

-A.W. Tozer, Chapter 2  "The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing"

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Have you an Isaac? Have you something so precious in your heart that it has dethroned the Sovereign Lord from His rightful place? A thing, dream, person, or desire? Something so dear to you that it would be better to die than to lose it? 

I will be honest with you friend (because that's what electrifies life- raw vulnerability), 

I have been asked to sacrifice my Isaac. I have been asked to lay him upon the Lord's alter and oh, the pain. The pain. I can imagine Abraham writhing in the desert for I am there with him; knees weak, stomach overturned, heart wrenching and bursting in agony. There is no pain so great as to lose what is most precious to you. 

Nothing. 

I am in that place on the mountain side. Looking over Isaac-bound with sin-asking me through salty, sharp tears, "WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!"

There is great and unimaginable sorrow that fills your heart when your dreams ask you that question, when the Lord asks you to surrender your greatest desire so that it is no longer yours, but His.

 The human heart simply cannot understand. 

I cannot tell you yet of the great blessings that will follow this sacrafice. I cannot yet tell you of how the Lord provided but HE WILL and when he does friends, I cannot wait to tell you about it. Not for my sake, but for yours. 

Until then, I leave you with my only hope, the hope I cling to, the hope Abraham threw his entire soul into, the hope I will rest every ounce of my being in because I can do nothing else. Hear my words, I will not die on this mountain side as the sorrow beckons me too. 

I will not give up but I will surrender.

The Lord gives good things to those who trust in Him, to those who quietly wait for salvation who love Him. Good things! No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind can imagine these good things! None! That is how freaking good they are. 

The Lord has a PERFECT plan with PERFECT timing because He is PERFECT. 

The Lord will provide. He has too. He promised and He is faithful.
The Lord knows what I need, and believe it or not, that is greater than what I want.

That is where I try and find my peace on this mountainside, deeply mourning over Isaac. He is the Lord's now, not mine. Do not hear me denying the pain. There is no darkness like it. Only those who have experienced it, know of it. Yet, there is somehow beauty in this chaos.

"God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where

He knew there would be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand

upon the boy. To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect, "It's

all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the

lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I

might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that

existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Take him

and go back to your tent. Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that

thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me."

Then heaven opened and a voice was heard saying to him, "By myself have

I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast

not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless

thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the

heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall

possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations

of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice."

-A.W. Tozer "The Pursuit of God"

  We find truth and hope in who God is
     not the mystery of what He allows. 

He is good. He is love. His love never fails.


When the pain twists inside me, I will scream this truth with every breath of my lungs. 

"The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. you anoint my head with oil; MY CUP OVERFLOWS. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
Psalm 23:1-6