Putting to Death my ‘Isaac’

The pain and ache of the loss is real – the putting to death a dream that one has held for over twenty years, the letting go of what one thought was his/her specific calling.

The momentary feeling of regrets, of ‘what ifs’, of ‘perhaps I should have’ has the power to derail us from total obedience and yieldedness to a Higher Being who knows it best.

What went through Abraham’s mind when God said to him, “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” (Gen 22:2)?

Earlier, God promised Abraham, “. . . your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.” (Gen 17:19)

How do these two statements square with each other? No, they don’t, not according to our limited ‘rational’ minds.

What enabled Abraham to bind his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, took the knife and slay the son that he loves in full obedience, when all these years, Abraham believed and waited for God’s promise that he will bless him and make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore through Isaac?

It is painful . . . I dare not hope, pray or ask that God himself will provide a lamb for the sacrifice. What if He doesn’t? What I do know is He has spoken clearly to me, to sacrifice my ‘Isaac’. Will I obey when the time comes? If I do, when I look back, will I regret my decision?

Only time will tell . . .

I wonder if Jesus had ever thought he had a better plan than the one being set before him as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. For now, may my prayer be the same as my Lord’s, who too, struggled and prayed, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.“