Appalachian Disciple

I just heard a sermon on Genesis 22 — Abraham’s offering of Isaac.  More specifically, it was about Jehovah Jireh, “the LORD will provide,” the name of God revealed during that event. Today, though, I was struck by the second half of v. 14, which I’d not much noticed before: “as it is said to this day, ‘On the mountain of the LORD it shall be provided.’”

So this story must have been told and retold, of how God asked this head-scratching and heart-breaking thing of Abraham, how he took every step to carry it through, though it made no sense, how this evidence of faith pleased God and passed His “test” and how, in the nick of time, Isaac was spared and a different sacrifice provided. Told and retold such that at the time of writing, many hundreds of years later, there was a saying among Abraham’s (and Isaac’s) descendants: “On the mountain of the LORD it shall be provided.”

What struck me was the full phrase.  It wasn’t just, “the LORD will provide,” but “on the mountain of the LORD it shall be provided.”  Why “on the mountain of the LORD?” Maybe because that’s where obedience had led Abraham.  He could not have wanted to be there. The situation had to look bleak. Indeed, the writer of Hebrews tells us how Abraham was trying to reason it out, to reconcile in his own mind how his God, who had promised one thing, seemed now to be commanding a contradictory thing (see Heb. 11:17-19)

He didn’t stay back at home until he arrived at a satisfying answer, until he was sure it would all come out the way he wanted. No, he took the wood, the fire, and his long-desired son of promise and journeyed three days in silent obedience. God tested him right up to the point of drawing the knife before He intervened with His provision. Maybe that’s the place where the LORD provides — when I’ve followed Him in obedience to that place where I don’t understand what He’s doing, but I have to just trust Him. I’ve followed in faith to that place where my mind tries to make it logical, but the truth is that only God’s intervention will keep this from being the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.  When I am willing to go there, God will provide.  When I’m willing to obey like that, Jehovah Jireh. On the mountain of the LORD, it will be provided.

So we want to claim the Name without venturing up the mountain. We wait for provision without the obedience, which of course, is to fail the test. It causes me to consider the hard, illogical, heartbreaking things in my life — if they were transposed over this event — where would I be in the story?  Back home, refusing to go altogether? Halfway up the hill but too afraid to get to the top? Everything in place for the sacrifice, but I just can’t draw the knife? Lost in my own head because I haven’t been able to reason out yet a way that obedience to God will still turn out good for me and those I love?

Romans 4:18 describes the kind of faith that Abraham had a history of: “in hope he believed against hope” (ESV), or “Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping…” (NLT)  It’s exactly the kind of faith that well-meaning apologists assure us is not required of us. After all, see how much evidence there is for the existence of God; see how much sense His law makes when rightly understood; see how irrefutable are the eyewitness testimonies to Jesus’ resurrection, see how soundly reasonable this whole gospel story is!  Rightly so, and yet… sometimes you’re Abraham facing your greatest test, with something precious to lose, and the kind of faith required of you is the very blind trust you may have avoided up until now.  Oh I want that kind of faith! I want it for you and for myself – to get up on the mountain, to take obedience that far, to get to the place where we can see God provide in the hardest thing we’ve ever been asked to do.