Pulling an Abraham

I was thinking the other day, you know how when you do something stupid or out of the norm, you say, “pulling a Brandon” [or insert name here] to be like someone who has done something in the past. Well, I was thinking that I’d want to “pull and Abraham.”

In Genesis we read about Abraham and his coming faith. He is chosen by God to undergo trials and tribulations, but also to learn who God is upfront and personal. God tests him by not giving him children until he’s like 90 years old. Then he God goes ahead and asks him to sacrifice this child that he’s waited so many years for by going up to a mountain and killing him. What does Abraham do? Grabs a knife and gets going.

Um, cello? Who in their right mind would do this? This is something that he’s waited a lifetime for, just because God promised him nations and blessings for doing his will, would you kill your own son? Well, we have to realize back then, Christianity is new, this idea of a “religion” and a God who is just and at the same time loving is kind of a new thing. Not to mention, we didn’t have a Jesus back then to make it real to us, we hadn’t seen God in man yet. So its even more of a big deal that Abe was like, well, gotta do what I gotta do.

So what I’m saying is that, I would love to have that sort of giving and sacrifice in my life. Granted, I don’t have a child and I’m not a ninety year old man, but I want to give to God those most important things, even if means I’m letting go of everything that I’m comfortable with. I was talking with someone the other day and they had an idea of what they wanted in life, where they wanted to live, a time frame of when they’d like to be married and have kids. But here’s the thing, they weren’t willing to give that up! They weren’t willing to make sacrifices in their life in order to show their faith to God.

And that’s just it, when we do actually make these sacrifices, we are demonstrating our faith in the Lord that he will provide and that he loves us. When Abraham did this, it was credited to him as righteousness. God is the only one and thing that can give us righteousness, and to have it credited to Abe, means God’s saying, I know Abraham is faithful and that he loves me, so I’m going to make him the father of nations and bless him abundantly.

Can you imagine if we do these little things of giving up our schedules or the things that hinder us, the fun that isn’t good for us, the things that we like to do, but know that it hurts other people – what if we gave that up? Adding up all those little things, is our way of showing our faithfulness to God and how he can see, God, we’re with you! By giving up these things, it hardly hurts us, instead, we gain from it! How amazing is that?

So I think we should all try to “pull and Abraham,” and give up something that we aren’t willing to yet.