loyd.net

You told Abraham
He would have a heritage
And children to inherit it.
But years passed,
There were no children.
You spoke to him again,
He raised the question.
You promised him an heir,
Not a slave,
A son.
He believed.

Yet he was not patient.
When Sarah faced facts
She offered a surrogate.
As our first father before him
Abraham did not listen to you:
He listened to his wife,
He listened to his own desires,
He listed to clear reason.
Ishmael's birth caused trouble then
And ever since.

Years passed.
You spoke again:
Not only Abraham's son,
But Sarah's, too.
They laughed—
Laughed in disbelief
Then laughed for joy.

Years passed.
You spoke again:
You told him to throw it all away.
Twenty-five years of waiting,
A fractured family,
Devastated lives,
For what?
The child of promise,
The child of Abraham's old age,
The child of Sarah's laughter—
Their only son,
The son they loved—
Take this one,
Now old enough to speak,
Old enough to wonder why—
Give him back.
The later law would condemn
Those who sacrificed children.
But you asked the impossible,
The outrageous,
Even the immoral.

"Take your son,
Your only son."
Of all the harsh demands you've placed upon your people
Could any be harsher than this?
Abraham by now had learned
Trying to figure it out on his own
Would only make matters worse.
Abraham believed.
"God will provide," he told his son.
God had provided Isaac.
As another faithful sufferer said,
God gives, and God takes away.
Abraham took knife in hand—

Blessed be the name of the Lord,
You spoke again!
Though Isaac his descendent are numbered,
Children of faith,
Children of the one who believed—
And it was counted as righteousness.

I claim this heritage,
I claim reliance in your Providence.
Yet would I dare destroy what you have given?
Lord, I believe,
Help my unbelief.

You ask as much of every parent:
To return their children to you
Through death and burial
In the dark waters.
You asked no less of yourself:
You gave your Son,
Your only Son,
To forever stay Abraham's hand.

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