Faith of Our Fathers - Abraham: Committed to God

Reflections from Genesis 21, 22

Abraham was about to face the most difficult and important test of his life when God said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering… Isaac, the son that God had promised Abraham, the son through whom God was to fulfill all the promises He made to Abraham, had finally come and now God was asking Abraham to give him back…to give up his hope for a future. Throughout the Genesis narrative, Abraham had done a less than stellar job of following God. He flees the land that God promised him when there’s a famine. He passes his wife off as his sister on two different occasions. He has an affair with his wife’s handmaid in hopes of having a son…all the while God has been faithful. And now God wants to know if Abraham will be faithful…is he committed to God above all else?

Many of us are like Abraham in our faith journey…willing to trust God when things are going well, but running at the first sign of trouble. The implied question in Abraham’s test is the same one that we all must face in our spiritual walk, “Am I committed to God?” “How important is He to me?” Ultimately God wasn’t calling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but himself. God wanted Abraham to hold nothing back from Him, and He wants the same from us. Remember the faithfulness of God in your past and use it as a springboard to believing His faithfulness in the future.

Father, forgive me when I follow you with faltering steps that are quick to retreat in times of trouble. Thank you for Your faithfulness to me over and over again…for good gifts which You have blessed me with, and may the reminder of Your faithfulness in the past spur me on to trust You more day by day. Jesus, may my desire for You eclipse everything else, and may I be able to say with whole-hearted, reckless abandon, “I want what You want!” Amen!