How do we make sense of things? Friends and family have reached out in recent days, trying to comprehend what God is saying and doing in their time of suffering. These are hard questions with no easy answers. What is our part when suffering knocks on our door and the way God is working does not make sense to us?
Abraham’s faith enabled him to obey God, even when it did not make sense. Like Noah before him, the father of nations, Abraham did what he knew God had told him to do. He went to the specific place God had told him about. There Abraham built an altar, arranged the word, bound his son, and lifted the knife. At the last moment, God called his name and he answered again, “Here I am.” Then God stopped him.
What did Abraham’s faith reveal? God saw that Abraham feared him and would not have withheld his son, his only son, the son that he loved from God. How did Abraham do that? I do not know. All I know is that when it came time for the Sovereign Lord of the universe to ascend a cross in the same mountain chain as Moriah to atone for the sins of the world, God did not withhold his Son, his only Son, the Son that he loved. It made no sense. But God so loved that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. Do we believe? Will we obey? We will live.
