Something Special

In the story of Abraham being called to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22, there are three different dialogues that happen.  First there is Abraham's response to God in verses 1-3.  Isolating these verses, Abraham has to deal with the thought that God has called him to do something that directly conflicts with His promise to make Abraham's kin a nation.  And yet Abraham readily obeys.  Here we see Abraham believes that God has a right to mess with His promises and expects obedience even if we don't understand what He is doing.
The second dialogue is with Isaasc in which Isaac asks where the sacrificial lamb was.  We see Abraham give a profound answer: "God will provide".  Abraham believes in the provision of God not the in the blessing of God.  He is not shaken by the fact that Isaac is threatened because His faith is the One who gave him Isaac.  We learn from Abraham that our faith should be in God, not in God's blessing.  An important distinction in the life of a believer.
The last interaction Abraham has is with God again.  God tells Abraham not to kill Isaac.  And tells Abraham "now I know that you fear me...".  When Abraham looked up there was a ram in a bush that he used for a sacrifice.  Now, with the whole story before us, we see that God asking Abraham produced a deeper knowledge of God's providence. Abraham understood in a real way that not only CAN God provide but that He will provide.

But hear is something special.

God gave Abraham a son.  Miraculously.  Maybe the only greater thing than having a son born to him would be to have his son given to him back from the dead which is what this experience must have felt like.  But there is another thing that happened.  God restates His original promise.  And it is almost a reassurance.  It is a reassurance that God's promise will not even be broken by him.  And with this experience he has also given Abraham new hands with which to receive this gift.  Stronger hands.  More sure hands.

And all of this is God's provision.  His providence always gives us more than we thought we should have.  As Christians, we are those who are supposed to be the salt of the world.  World transformers.  The aches of the world need those who, like Abraham, are not shaken by God's "messing with" our lives.  The world needs us to let God shake us up because the world needs a people who will be a blessing to it.
God's promise to Abraham is our promise.  And if we would believe like Abraham, the world will be blessed.