Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – July 11, 2020
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. Genesis 22:1-3
I want to reflect today on walls that appear on our journey of faith. The roadblocks along the way that threaten to stop us and turn us back from our life with God. To be human is to encounter these obstacles. They are simply unavoidable. And so, what do we do when we find ourselves up against a wall, in a season of life in which we feel that we cannot go any further?
In countless ways, the events of the past few months have come at us like an insurmountable wall. And in my conversations with family and friends, what I’ve heard time and time again is simply this: “I’m so ready for this to be over and for us to go back to how things were before. I just want things to be normal.” Yet here’s something I want us to sit with today. Are we, in our quest for normalcy, ignoring and sidestepping an invitation from our Lord to deepen and grow in our Christian faith?
Struggle, my friends, lies at the very heart of the journey of faith. In fact, I would go so far as to say there can be no real growth in the Christian life without some form of struggle and a season of trial. This is why James can be so bold as to say “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything” (James 1:2-4).
God wants us to be mature and complete, not lacking any part of the life he offers to you and to me. And so when we face trials and struggles, when we are up against a wall, might it be that what seems to be meant for our harm or our destruction is in fact, in the mystery of God’s will, an invitation into maturity?
Genesis 22 is one of the most memorable, and difficult, passages of Scripture. Yet at its core, I believe this story reminds us of this truth in a powerful way. The testing of Abraham from God is fundamentally an invitation to encounter God in the midst of pain and confusion. It is an invitation to encounter God by passing through a great trial. It is an invitation to trust, to believe that God is a good father who, in his wisdom, allows us to enter into places of confusion and seasons of pain, in order to make us more like his son Jesus.
Prayer
Father, help us to trust that you are working all things for our good, and that our current struggles develop perseverance and make us more like Jesus. Amen.
Application
Rather than running away from your fears or buckling under the weight of your struggle, how can you instead be transformed and remade through it?
Related Reading
1 Chronicles 16:11; Galatians 6:9; Hebrews 10:36
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God is a good father who, in his wisdom, allows us to enter into places of confusion and seasons of pain, in order to make us more like his son Jesus. #trust #wisdomhunters #truth #Jesus
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