Up On The Mountain

'Take now thy son', said God to Abraham, 'thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I tell thee of.' Genesis 22:2

Isaac was his father's pride and delight. The apple of his eye. As his son grew up, as time went by, Abraham grew fonder and fonder of his son. As Tozer puts it in The Pursuit Of God, Isaac "represented everything sacred to his father's heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream." Abraham deeply loved his son.

In the light of this deep love and affection, we can only start to imagine or understand how torn Abraham must have been when God asked him to give up his son, his only son. The one person he was most fond of. I suppose Abraham wrestled with God under a star lit sky, as his son was sleeping in the tent, unaware of what was to come. We aren't given an account of what Abraham felt, we aren't told much about Abraham's way of dealing with having to offer his son, his prized possesion, as a burnt offering. We can only try to imagine the anguish which preceded his walk up to the mountain with his son.

Giving up your son, the one you love dearly. I wonder what that feels like. I wonder what it's like to be asked to give up the one person who to you always embodied God's promises, God's providence, God's faithfulness. I wonder how Abraham made sense of God's command which at that point ran counter to God's promise "In Isaac shall thy seed be called". Or maybe it made no sense. Maybe Abraham abandoned himself to God's 'folly', knowing that His ways were higher than men's. He thought God might raise Isaac from the dead - at least he trusted God would come through. He obeyed, trusting that this demand on God's part ultimately had its purpose.

God wanted to highlight something in Abraham's heart. Abraham was not interrupted in his faithful obedience of sacrificing his son until the very last moment, until it would have been too late to reverse the situation. "It's all right, Abraham, I never intended that you should actually slay the lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Take him and go back to your tent. Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me."

After reading this story, I sit and wonder what I hold on to, who I cling on to and what it is in my life that remains unoffered to God. What do I need to bring up to the mountain and offer up to God, so that He may reign unchallenged there?

At this point in time, when the season of goodbyes is in full bloom with university ending, people, I realise once again, is a good example of something I have trouble letting go of. You would have thought that growing up in Geneva, where people continually move on and out of your life, I would be used to goodbyes by now. Funnily enough, I'm still not. Goodbyes smell. As nicely as my feet do after a day's worth of walking around in "europe's largest shopping mall". My newest claim to fame, yes yes. Of course, you can still keep in touch with the people who have left, but it's not the same. They're not part of your everyday life anymore... that's life for you, I suppose.

I was reading The Pursuit Of God yesterday morning and stumbled upon something that captured exactly the essence of what it is that makes letting go of people hard, at least to me:
"We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety. This is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed."

God gives and takes away, and I know that He has done so before so that He may reign in the temple of my heart. He brings people in and out of our life; for a season, for a lifetime; to share stories and laughs, memories and paths. With letting go of my friends and loved ones and committing them into safe Hands, I offer them up with a prayer of thanks. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of Lights, and I am more than blessed to have journeyed with these people. I know that God's ways are higher, and that He never leaves my side. That He is constant and consistent amidst the irregular pattern of my life. Psalm 121.


"Father, I want to know thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that thou make the place of thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for thou wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus' name, amen." - A. W. Tozer

Father, I long for You to reign unchallenged in my heart.

My ears are currently seduced by: Rosie Thomas - Only With Laughter Can You Win