SUNDAY: Bible Study - 9:00 AM | Worship - 10:00 AM | PM Worship - 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY: Bible Class - 7:00 PM ~ 8110 Signal Hill Road Manassas, Virginia | Office Phone: 703.368.2622

Take your son, your only son , Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. - Genesis 22.2

There are times as a reader that you are shocked by a passage, despite having read it hundreds of times over scores of years. I never cease to be jarred when David “takes” Bathsheba, and then arranges the death of her husband, for instance.

abraham isaac 1As you read along in Genesis you wait nine chapters for the child of promise to be born. When Isaac finally arrives, his mother is 90 years old and his dad is 100. So when God, in the very next chapter, tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac it shocks every time. In the first place human sacrifice is never sanctioned by God. Then there is the way God makes the emotional stress of this command as extreme as possible.  He doesn’t just say, “Take Isaac.” He says, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love…” Is that really necessary?

            This isn’t all God says, though. He says “take him to a place which I will tell you.” I think this statement is a strong message of reassurance.  When God first calls Abraham, He tells him to go to “To the land I will show you,” (Genesis 12.1).  When He includes the same detail in Genesis 22 it is a way of saying to Abraham, “I have been with you this far, you can trust Me now.”

            God does that – He continually gives us reminders of His presence, and of our special relationship to Him.  He spoke from the parted heavens when Jesus was baptized. He spoke thus again on the Mount of Transfiguration, after giving Jesus a measure of His Heavenly Self. He says to Jesus, “I and here, and You are Mine.” 

            I have had such experiences – times when I thought God was giving me a nudging reminder of His benevolent presence. Once was in seminary. I was depressed, seriously doubting God’s goodness. It was early October – a bleak day that promised rain without delivering it. As I walked down the hill this large flock of starlings was flying in mass synchronization up and down and around the hill. Suddenly they started flying at ground level up the hill, right past me. I could feel the wind of their wing beats all around. After cresting the hill, they flew back down again, whizzing past, an inch away on every side as I stood frozen. It could have been a coincidence, but I felt like I was being told, “I am here, and I am good.”

            Once when my oldest daughter was exactly the age her daughter is now I was playing volleyball at a church picnic and had to leave the game to change a diaper. I was not happy because I had just rotated to the front, and there was a deacon across the net from me I was itching to spike the ball on. As I was changing Jessica’s diaper she started singing “Jesus Loves Me.” It was the sweetest thing I had ever heard. There is something about hearing your own child singing that song that makes your faith deeper than ever before. I was being told “I am here, and I love you.”

            Once, when I had been occupied with administrative tasks almost exclusively for weeks, I prayed for just a simple act of service that would help someone. “Give me the opportunity to wash feet,” were the exact words I prayed. Later that afternoon I visited a sister who was quite ill. We visited, we prayed, and as I got up to leave she said “Can I ask you a favor?  Would you wash my feet and clip my toenails.” “Yes,” I said, “It would be a blessing.” And it was. Is there a greater blessing than having a prayer immediately and undeniably answered? I was being told, “I am here, and I am listening.”

            Christina Rossetti once wrote that “Every bush is aflame with God, but only some of us take our shoes off.  The rest just pick strawberries.” I am sure God reminds us every day that He is here, He is good, and He is listening. Are we listening?

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