Genesis 22 A Lamb for an offering

When God asks us to sacrifice, he always provides a lamb in the bushes.

It's been a long week for me. A week of second guessing myself and choosing direction.  A week of travel, meetings, and family time that has caused me to wonder why I read and ponder and study the scriptures the way I do.  Why am I on this scripture journey? And that led me to consider if Abraham ever wondered why his love for God had brought him to the place where he was willing to listen to obedience and love for God over ethical reason, over family security?  His faith was so sure that he didn't know how God would answer his pleas, but he knew he had to obey, and that his answer would come in and through his obedience. In practicing obedience he would find the answers and understanding of God's law that he longed for.  God had kept his promise before, why would God forsake him now? He didn't know where the Lamb for an offering would come from, but surely as he prepared and did all that God required of him, he knew that the lamb would be there. He trusted God. And in trusting God, he learned to trust himself. God knew how Abraham would respond. The test was for Abraham to learn how Abraham would respond. 

Concerning Abraham, President Hugh B. Brown said,  

"God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac because "Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham" (in Truman G. Madsen, The Highest in Us [1978], 49). 

Elder George Q. Cannon spoke about Abraham in the April 1899 Conference. He said: 

“Why did the Lord ask such things of Abraham? Because, knowing what his future would be and that he would be the father of an innumerable posterity, he was determined to test him. God did not do this for His own sake; for He knew by His foreknowledge what Abraham would do; but the purpose was to impress upon Abraham a lesson, and to enable him to attain unto knowledge that he could not obtain in any other way. That is why God tries all of us. It is not for His own knowledge; for He knows all things beforehand. He knows all your lives and everything you will do. But He tries us for our own good, that we may know ourselves. ... He required Abraham to submit to this trial because He intended to give him glory, exaltation and honor; He intended to make him a king and a priest, to share with Himself the glory, power and dominion which He exercised” (GeorgeQ. Cannon, in Conference Report, Apr. 1899, 66).

Sometimes it feels like when I sit down to write I am listening to obedience over reason. I don't have a clue how many people I am reaching?   Do my words matter? Is it a wise use of my time, my faith? But I know, like Abraham,  that God is reaching me: one person, one mother, one daughter, one sister, one grandmother, one handmaiden of the Lord, one family.  When there are so many other things I can with my time I wonder why I write so deeply about what I learn? The beauty is that every time I write... every time I am obedient to the promptings to analyze and present my thoughts on the scriptures, I find "a lamb" in the bushes, some surprise that God has prepared for me that I would not have seen if I had chosen to disobey. Usually it comes in a learned principal that raises my spirit up, or stabilizes the ground I stand on. Or it might teach me a new perspective that becomes imperative in my own families peril of survival, but not always. Sometimes it merely brings me peace. A peace that I am certain Abraham felt when he realized where his loyalties lay and the rewards that his faith would bring him and all of his likewise obedient progeny. 

The sister missionaries in my daughters mission

I have a daughter who is currently on a mission for our church. Her leaders have kept a mission blog and I read it from time to time. Tonight when I read through it I was amazed at how much sacrifice is given by each missionary and by each leader. There is one photo of the mission president and his wife washing dishes. Mission Presidents come from all walks of life: wealthy, poor, educated, not so educated, successful businessmen, farmers, sportsmen, educators, etc. When they come to serve the Lord they come to serve. The only prerequisite they need is a willing heart to sacrifice what or whom they love so that others can learn and feel of God's love.  Fortunately the law of blood sacrifice passed with the atonement by Jesus Christ. God now proves us by asking us to present our willingness to serve and love one another. It starts in our family with our spouse, our children, our parents and then moves to our neighbors our church community, our school or city of residence. We are asked to forsake selfish pleasures and desires for the welfare of something larger than ourself.  When we do this we find .... our own joys.  But mostly.. we find ourself. We discover what we hold dear. Each choice to serve and obey defines us. It draws us into the circle of God's love. 




It's not because God needs to know who we are and what we are capable of, it's because like Abraham who was given a commandment to sacrifice the very thing he had lived his entire life for, the very promise that God had given him, we are brought to our own personal trials so that we too might know where our loyalties and our joys lie. 


I have found that when I read and contemplate the scriptures each week, I am able to make my relationship with him more active. No longer am I a passive receiver of words.  By writing what I learn the lessons become imprinted on my heart and act as a guiding star in my daily decisions. How often have I considered Sarah and Abraham and their love for one another, their epic story of love, fidelity, faith, and what they sacrificed for me so that I might have a higher understanding of God's law. How grateful I am to my friend who challenged me a year ago to read Genesis. Never in my wild imaginations could I have conceived how profoundly this book of holy scripture would forever change me. By making a consistent effort to commit to feast on his words I have found great peace and comfort in my trials. I have learned to let anxiety pass me by and understood better what it means to trust in the Lord with all my heart, might, mind and strength. I have not known fewer trials, but I have had the strength to use my trials as stepping stones. And isn't it true that with each trial we face if we don't make it into a stepping stone, it becomes a stumbling stone that stresses us and causes us to loose our way. 

Concerning the stress and trials that Abraham went through to discover these truths Elder Neal A. Maxwell  said our lives “cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free....

“Therefore, how can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1991, 117; or Ensign, May 1991, 88 ).

Most focus in Genesis 22 is on  the fact that he is offering his son, that he has ignored the moral law of not killing your own, that it goes against everything God had taught him, or that it is just so horrible to consider that he would give his son. We focus on Isaac and his grief and pain. Abraham's sacrifice is hard to consider because Abraham's trial is our own. It is why we have a hard time pondering it. It is the sacrifice we forsake to serve another, to stand as a witness, to show God and ourself that the love within us is the love we believe it is. 

Waiting on the Lord Genesis 21:1-8

Isaac 

Second patriarch; son of Abraham and Sarah. He was the child of a miracle, for at the time of his birth his mother, hitherto childless, was ninety years old, and his father a hundred. By the command of God the child was named "Isaac" (; in poetical language  = "laughter"), because Abraham had, covertly, laughed in incredulity when, a year previously, he had received the promise of God that a son would be born to him by Sarah (Gen. xvii. 17); so also did Sarah as, standing at the door of the tent, she heard the promise reiterated by the angel (Gen. xviii. 12). Isaac was circumcised when he was eight days old, and at his weaning the parents manifested their joy by giving a great feast. As a solicitous mother Sarah urged Abraham to send away Ishmael, his son by the servant-maid Hagar, whom she had seen mocking Isaac. At first Abraham hesitated, but at the command of God he complied with the wish of his wife; Isaac was thus declared the sole heir of his father.

Dear Sarah. 

What joy you must have felt to realize the Lord's promise in your life, fulfilled. To give birth at the age of ninety, to see the miracle of birth restored to you, a woman whose time had passed, to understand the power of God is greater than the power of nature. What joy you must have felt as you felt your son's unborn life quicken within you. And how the women around you must have fussed over you, talked about you and your miracle. How it must have given them hope and taught them of faith in the God of Abraham. 

If I could have been there? If I could have been a fly on the wall, what might I have heard? What might I have understood about your faith, your willingness to cleave unto your covenants? And the joy received because of your strength of faith. 

I love Abraham's choice of a name for your son. Isaac. So strong and so joyful. A way for you to always remember how to rejoice. You must have known that it comes from the word Yitzhak, which in Hebrew means "laughing one," or as God's promise to you it also is a reminder of how your son is a "child of the promise." I suppose God could not allow you to call your son Yitzhak, laughing one because it has so many connotations, but Isaac, this means covenant and promise and rejoicing in the fulfillment of the promise. You are so blessed to be able to have a son you can call Isaac. 

And your family was the first we know of to establish the custom of circumcision. I wonder how you dealt with this? Did you trust Abraham? Here he was with the child you were promised would bring you seed as the sands of the sea and he wants to do what? Clearly as a new custom of less than one year, it had not been fully accepted.  I wonder if you understood? How much of your actions were based on faith and how much on reason. I wonder if Isaac's circumcision played a role in his reaching the age of three when he could be weaned? I applaud your faith. When my own sons were born I questioned it and did my own research.

According to our social custom, my sons were circumcised in the hospital within hours of birth.But I remember studying how important it is to circumcise at day eight because in days 5-7  a child experiences a rise in Vitamin K which then acts as a pain killer and prevents hemorrhaging. As proof that the medical community is aware of this my second son was born with a minor heart defect that  required heart-valve surgery but the surgeons insisted on waiting to day 8 to preform it. I think it is amazing how the customs that we practice today came from revelation given to you and Abraham as you awaited the birth of a very much wanted son. I wonder how circumcision in young boys during your time helped prolong their life in a world where cleanliness was not as well established as it is today. 

In today's world most women stop bearing children by the age of 45. And you were twice past this age? Abraham was one hundred. I think I have generational problems with my youngest? I am certain that you had housemaids help you teach your son. You had a network of family and servants to help him understand his social customs and his religious rituals. But there were no grandparents to help here because you had traveled away and Abraham's father had passed. There is no mention of your family being with you.  I am thinking of how at each of my births I too was a traveler and although I could share the news with my family they were not able to attend the birth. 

And you Sarah rejoiced at the birth of your son Isaac. You rejoiced at his growth and ability to thrive in a time when children rarely made it to their third birthday. You were able to wean your child and bring him to the table for meat and honey. What a joyful day. I read somewhere a while back that the Jewish celebration of weaning was put in place to celebrate the child's ability to thrive and survive. It was a very important day. And Isaac's weaning was significant because it proved the Lord's love once again. It showed how the Lord was not only able to keep to his promise of giving Abraham a son, but he would help him thrive and survive. 

I wanted to say also that as I read "who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should have given children suck?" I realized that you didn't use a wet nurse, but you nursed the child yourself. Wow. Another miracle. What a powerful message for God to send to all the world. He is in charge of life and birth and the milk that flows from our breasts. Having nursed six children I am very much aware of the importance it holds in passing on immunity and vitamins and fat and all of the necessary nutrition to help a child survive. 

Sarah so much is lost in your story of how you gave birth. So much is not considered because words can only tell us what happened. As a woman I am aware of your pain, your joy and your rejoicing because you chose to cleave tight to your covenants and believe in a God that promised you more than nature could itself provide. 

With love 

Your spiritual granddaughter