Lessons from Abraham.

Honestly, sometimes I have a difficult time with the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. It can appear on the surface that God was simply being cruel. However, upon close inspection, we can learn quite a bit about what God thinks of US from this event. I really had my world shaken up today by listening to Beth explain things in a new light. I thought I'd paraphrase & share. Hopefully somebody out there runs across this and is as blown away as I am. I really needed this today.....

  For starters, God never intended Abraham to actually kill his son. In the first verse of this passage, it says, "and God TESTED Abraham." Well, that's good to know. Thing is, Abraham didn't know this was only a test. Likewise, when we go through a tough time, God doesn't always broadcast to us that this is a test. But it certainly may be! And another thing....each person has their own test. Thankfully, God works uniquely in each life & we don't have to (or get to) go through other people's testing. We have our name and our name only on ours. ("And God said, "Abraham, I want u to.....")

Here's the cool part for me. Ready for this?....God already knows the outcome of our testing & trials. He doesn't give them to us in order to find out what'll happen or how we'll handle it. Crazy, huh? You know that age old question about why God allows bad things to happen to amazing people? Here's an answer that'll blow your mind....Perhaps it's to show us what we have in us. What we're made of. Those things that we're always so afraid of going through, or handling, we swear that if they ever happen we'll just destruct? Sometimes He may allow those very things to happen to prove to US that we're so much stronger, tougher, capable, & more beautiful than we know or believe. He's saying "You keep shrinking back from that. Child, don't you know what you can do and handle if you just trust me?"  I never thought of tests or hard times as God proving something to ME. Something about myself.  That's pretty incredible. That really blows my mind. That helps. That makes the intensely difficult situation bearable. That gives me hope. That tells me it's a test. And tests do eventually end. And I'll have learned a whole lot about myself from it. If I buckle down and Believe Him, the things that are possible are endless! This speaking to anybody? Because I think I just got me a word. And it just made my world so much better!