Obedience & Sacrifice

When the kids are a bit crazy or whiny - I think of my neighbor R who has the same number of the same approximate age as my own.  She talks about how the end of Ramadan is coming soon, and how that will make it easier with the kids, being able to feed them during the day.  It's hard to even imagine her life.

Next up after Ramadan comes the Fete du Mouton, which celebrates God's providence in the story of Abraham and Isaac.  Think of that parenting experience.  Abraham's hiking up the mountain with the knife and the load of wood.  "where's the sacrifice?" and Abraham, believing God, prophetically responds, "God will provide himself a sacrifice."  At the perfect moment, the angel stops Abraham and the ram in the thicket is substituted.  So many parallels - the story fulfilled in the life and death of Jesus Christ.

God provided the sacrifice required for our relationship with him.
He provided himself as a sacrifice for himself, at the perfect moment.
Like Isaac, Jesus obediently laid himself on the wood as a sacrifice.

Like Abraham, I live an everyday life - but there do come those critical moments when a sacrifice is called for, where God says, "Peter, do you love me?" or "Take your son, your only son that you love, and sacrifice him to me."  It's at those moments, when I don't really want to sacrifice, that a reminder of Jesus' example of faith - obedience unto death - convinces me to obey as I ought.

trust and obey...for there's no other way

if any man come after me, let him deny himself
take up his cross and follow me, into life eternally
deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus
he is the way, truth, and life

May we be obedient even to the point of death, believing God.