How do our children learn to worship God? More is caught than taught. Abraham and Isaac left the servants with the words, “We will go and worship and then we will come back to you.” Was Abraham deceiving his servants or demonstrating trust in God? The audience named Isaac was listening.
At some point, Isaac observed that they had everything except the animal sacrifice. He had the wood. Abraham had the knife and fire. Isaac was old enough to wonder how that might work without an animal. Listen to Abraham’s trust: “God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.” Two of them walked in trust, believing God would provide, not knowing how.
Our children learn to fear what we fear and to trust what we trust. If they see us trust God, they may also trust him. If Abraham had told God “no,” and taken matters into his own hands, Isaac would have seen that too. Calm begets calm. Isaac’s life was safe with God. Did Abraham know that God would not let him follow through or did he believe that God could raise his son back to life? Either way, God was his only hope.
Isaac watched his father love God more than his most precious gift, the gift of Isaac. Do our kids know that we love God more than anything in the world? Do they know we love God more than we love them? Our answer matters. They are watching and wondering. Like us, children were made to worship, not to be worshiped.
