I've yet to meet
the parent, myself included, that didn’t have a blind spot when it came to their
little ones. We think they are the most special
perfect things that ever walked the planet. Go to any little league game, kindergarten
graduation or school recital and ask whose kid is the talented one is and everyone
will raise their hands. The only way the
kid might make a catch is if the ball bounces off his head into his glove, but their
parents will still see an all-star. We love
them too much for anything less.
So then, parents
tend to go overboard when it comes to their children. We decorate our walls with
pictures of them, brag about them to anyone who will (and some who won't) listen
and are willing to do anything for
them. Sacrifice time, money, self, and
all reason for them. That’s what good
parent do. To ask a loving good parent to give up their kids
would ludicrous.
But that's exactly
what God does.
Wait, a loving God wouldn't
ask us to sacrifice children, would He? Then again, that is exactly what he did with
Abraham.
He said, "Take now your son, your only
son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as
a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."
Genesis 22:2
Now God wasn't interested
in the sacrifice as much as he was in seeing if Abraham was willing to do it. Could the man that believed God’s unlikely
promises still believe when it appeared God was about to take those promises
away? Abraham was willing to do just that,
give up his son for his God.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking, that was Abraham, from the Old Testament, God today wants me to
raise my kids right, bring them up in the Lord, show them love and care. That's all true. He wants you to love your kids but he wants you to love him more! Jesus said just as much in Matthew 10:37, "He
who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves
son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me”. To be his disciple means that our families
can’t be the most important thing in our lives, it has to be God (Luke 14:26)
It might be hard for
us to conceive the how or why it might happen, but that doesn't
negate that we
must be willing to give up even the most precious person to us for God. That kind of sacrifice is unbelievable. How
could God ask us to do that?
Well, it was exactly
what He was willing to do for us.
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