May 26th, 2012
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Will the Lord Provide?

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Opening Prayer

Father God, You are more to me than all Your gifts combined. Your name be adored, here and everywhere.

Read Genesis 22:1-19

[1] Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. [2] Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” [3] Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. [4] On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. [5] He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” [6] Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, [7] Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” [8] Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. [9] When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. [10] Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. [11] But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. [12] “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” [13] Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. [14] So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.” [15] The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time [16] and said, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, [17] I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, [18] and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” [19] Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

Meditate

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9).

Think Further

Having just given Abraham an extraordinary promise of numberless offspring (Gen. 15:1-6), God confounds all of his expectations by asking him to sacrifice his son. More than trusting the promise, this is now a question of the God behind the promise. Israel, too, had been called upon to trust in this very way when God declared that Christ, not Torah, was the goal of his merciful election, but they could not.

Each of us at some point, past or future, will find ourselves in a place where God’s actions appear to undermine his promises. How can I give up my Isaac (or Torah-righteousness), my solitary link between my present meager reality and hoped-for glorious future? But even if, as Paul celebrated, God’s ways are past finding out, his character is not. Whatever else, our God is a God of unimaginable mercy to all who call upon his name. Abraham obeyed. God provided. True, Abraham did not live to see his descendants fill the land, even less those who now stand in his faith across the globe, but the same God, who needs only a few small loaves and a couple of fish to feed a multitude, can save by many or by few. One Isaac was all it took. Abraham’s part was to trust.

Many of us might find the same manner of fulfillment of our promises. We might not see much in our lifetimes, but we now know what Abraham had to take on trust: that God uses the humblest of origins, including a shameful death on a cross, to amaze us all with his profound wisdom. Our small beginnings might not seem so grand, but it is amazing how a grain of faith can produce an abundant harvest of righteousness.

Apply

Think back over your life. Are there times when, to your amazement, God’s wisdom and will worked out for the best? Praise him for his watchful care over you.

Closing prayer

Lord, I readily lapse into thinking that everything rests on my ability to understand and to do. Help me to trust that the willing and the doing are Yours (Phil. 2:13).

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