On the altar

On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 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.”  –Genesis 22:4-5 (NIV)
 
I have four adult children. All were raised with an awareness of God, Jesus, and the Scriptures. In fact, I’d say they had more than an awareness – faith and church were an integral part of our lives. All four have struggled with their faith as grown-ups, ranging from mild skepticism about the veracity of the Bible to unabashed hostility toward God and all things religious.
 
So whatever I may have done right as a father, I failed to provide an environment that enabled my children to know God in a way that was life-giving, joy-filled, and redemptive. I went oh-for-4. I experienced a season of pretty severe depression over this, but have since made peace with the fact that I did the best I could with the understanding I had at the time the job needed to be done. The choices they make as adults are their own. Adam and Eve believed the lie and chose rebellion in the context of a perfect environment and a perfect Father.
 
Not that I have given up hope – far from it. I’ve given up trying to control the situation and “fix” them. Rather than placing my hope in trying to correct my past mistakes and get a “do-over”, I’m placing my hope where it should’ve been all along. My children and their spouses are on a journey that isn’t done yet and I am entrusting the process of their faith (re-)discovery to our Father, the Lover of their souls.
 
They are aware of the fact that they are prayed for daily, regardless of whether they place any stock in such activity. So I was encouraged a week ago when my son-in-law, in the midst of some very challenging life circumstances, reached out to speak to me about God, Jesus, and the Scriptures. A professed atheist of a decade or more was questioning his identity and priorities and he saw me as someone who could offer some perspective in areas where he wanted more information.
 
Over a few days, we’ve spoken extensively about life and spiritual matters. Within 36 hours of our first conversation, he was suffering through mental and emotional anguish such as he had never experienced. To my knowledge, I’d not previously witnessed a full-on demonic attack, but I might’ve this week. Sometimes spiritual warfare can be subtle, but when the enemy sees a longtime client slipping away, he plays dirty.
 
My Bible reading this week took me through Genesis 22 and the testing of Abraham when God told him to put his son Isaac on the altar. This story once struck me as arbitrary, capricious, and cruel. I later came to understand that the willingness to sacrifice a son was a kind of foreshadowing of what God the Father would one day do. In the shorter term, it was an exercise for Abraham and Isaac to prove to themselves the depth of devotion in their own hearts and to witness a God who could be trusted with such faithfulness.
 
It has occurred to me several times this week that asking God to do whatever it takes to save our children is a pretty brave prayer. And we won’t understand just how brave until we see Him start to answer. Kind of like that thing Abraham did.
 
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.”  –Genesis 22:14 (NIV)