Crazy Obedience

Gen 22:18 "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."

Crazy interesting stuff. Crazy because God's test for Abraham was huge. He asked him to kill Isaac, the son of God's promise. This makes absolutely no sense. God promised Abraham that he would have a son in his old age through Sarah in her old age. This happened as God promised. Now Abraham is supposed to sacrifice this son on an altar? How is all of this supposed to work? If Isaac is dead, then what? Another baby through Sarah? I am sure that some of this stuff ran through Abraham's mind. I am sure that he wondered what God was up to…yet we don't see any hesitance in his obedience. God came to him one day and the next day, early in the morning, Abraham put the plan into action. He grabbed two of his servants, wood, fire, knife and his son. It all was going down. He took Isaac, tied him up, laid him on the altar and was about to kill him when God stopped him.

Not only do I think that Abraham's trust and faith and obedience is amazing, but I think that Isaac was a pretty amazing kid too. He let his dad tie him up. He let his dad pick him up and put him on an altar. He let his dad raise a knife to him. Talk about the potential for having PTSD. Isaac could have. But he, just like his dad, had huge faith. "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." Abraham's faith was in God. Isaac's faith was in his dad.

This not only teaches me about faith in God and obedience to God, but it shows me what it is like for a son to have a strong relationship with his father…so strong that the son would believe in his dad so much that he would not even struggle when his life was in jeopardy.

Interesting stuff because of God's promise in this verse. "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice." Wait a minute. God made this same promise to Abraham back in 12:3. "And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Was God going to renege on His earlier promise if Abraham disobeyed? I don't think so. God had all of this planned from the beginning. He knew in12:3 that He was going to test Abraham. He knew back in 12:3 that Abraham was going to believe and obey. The obedience was built in, even though not stated, back in 12:3.

The result is that all of the nations on the earth have been blessed through Abraham who is in the line of Jesus through whom anyone in the whole earth, from any nation, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female can come and have eternal life. Talk about blessing! Abraham had no clue what this meant, but God did. And God's eternal plan was put into action through Abraham and his obedience.

I wonder what I would have done? How is my obedience when things don't make sense? Kind of challenging.