Forging Ahead

Once again we are looking down the long hallway of the coming year hopefully with anticipation verses the available and often appealing selection of negativity that so often clouds our minds. I am actually excited for this new year, knowing that this Fall has been much the season of shedding; dropping the leaves I kept to surround my lonely and not so visually attractive branches (fyi - its an analogy). How funny it is that I would love to jump right to spring, to see the beautiful blossoms emerge from the cold and dull limbs. However, the critical part is winter - that season of solitude; a place where surrounded by snow and frigid air the life source of the tree dives deep into the ground pushing its roots farther out, that it might be sustained in the harshest of environments. If winter was skipped the blossoms that follow would be an empty display, and not a wondrous celebration of survival and hidden growth. Growth that can not even be fully appreciated until later when hardships befall, and the deep roots have a source of life that was created in that place of "winter". Hehe, like my analogies? Ok, so maybe that isn't the life cycle of a tree at all, but it seems like there are so many things in life that the Lord surrounded us with to help us process. 

It was really interesting, the other night I was alternating between reading the Shack, When the Heart Waits, and my Bible when I kind of got this cool revelation. If you have already thought about this, ooor you think my discovery is weird/wrong I understand but once again its my blog so bear with me. Anyways, so in Genesis 22 God tells Abraham to take his only son Isaac to this land called Moriah, and on one of the Mountains sacrifice his as a burnt offering to God. Now I don't know about you but I always thought about this story as God trying to test the obedience of Abraham, a test which he passes, and God (at the last moment) spares Isaac's life providing a ram as the offering instead. While I was thinking about this, it really hit me that this is really like God showing us (from His perspective) how much he loves us. If you think about the story substitute God for Abraham; you and me, for Isaac; and Jesus for the ram. Think about how Abraham's heart was breaking thinking about the imminent death of his only son. How much more did God's heart break with the knowledge that we were bound for eternal death? Did Isaac fight his father? Asking him what the HECK he was thinking as Abraham made him carry the own wood that he would burn upon? Nope! Isaac trusted his father, that he would not do anything that wasn't in his best interest. How often to I complain to God as I'm carrying my wood up some mountain? How often do I plot and plan some way to get rid of what I carry, thinking that somehow if God loved me I wouldn't have to go through this. Yet was it because Abraham didn't love Isaac that he made him work to walk up the mountain? No, of course not! Imagine the horrid pit filling Abraham's gut as they got closer to the top of the mountain, he adored his son, after all Isaac was the fulfilled promise from God; it wasn't suppose to end this way. I just got this cool visual picture of God relating to us in the same way. 

-Now the story has limits of course, because it wasn't like God is under some other authority, or that God doesn't know the end to the story, but for the sake of my personal revelation try to hang in there with me.

How amazing to think about the provision of God that when "we" are laying on the alter we built with our own hands, with the very wood God had us carry up the mountain, that God provides a substitute. Jesus chose to be like that Ram caught in the briars, placed that He might be used as a burnt offering, the fragrance of His death going up and pleasing the very heart of His Father. I thought that it was a cool picture, albeit a slightly different way to look at that story. 

See my musings can be interesting from time to time...Stay tuned for more from the inner workings of my mind!!