We've all had the moments... you can't find your child in the parking lot or you wake up from a terrible dream where your baby dies. A family close to you loses a daughter, your co-worker loses her son. Your child's life is threatened by sickness or some crazy accident... or perhaps you have lived through the nightmare of actually losing a child.
It is in these seasons where any momma has the potential of being thrown into a deep tailspin of fear, anxiety or worse. We are confronted with our frailty and weakness and yet, it is also in these dark seasons where we have the opportunity to give our children to Jesus.
Growing up, the story of Abraham offering his son as a sacrifice was confusing. It was somewhat upsetting to consider God asking a good man to do such a dreadful, sickening thing. If you are unfamiliar with the story you can read it in Genesis 22.
I had some questions... what kind of child abuse was this, psychological or otherwise?!
On a brief side-note (that is really no side-note at all!), I want to encourage you to be a student of the Word, read it and ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand. Journal your questions, concerns and what you feel the Lord is teaching you. Underline and memorize passages that stick out to you. Find good Bible commentaries, teachings, and teachers who can answer your questions and give you perspective on what you are reading. The Bible is the Word of God and it teaches us who God is. What is His character like? What promises can we lean into, what has He made available to us in Christ... simply put, the Word is our daily bread and we cannot live without it.
OK back to the story of Abraham - I want to encourage you to learn more about this passage and the amazing character of God yourself but taken at face value, without much currency in the arena of trusting God... this isolated passage could lead to some serious misunderstandings about our amazingly zealous and yet incomparably safe Lord and Savior.
Do you know God? The God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Do you know Him? Do you know He is good, kind, compassionate, forgiving, and the embodiment of love? Do you know He is the definition of power itself, is the richest entity in the universe, and yet gave everything so that you may walk in His sanctifying love and presence, living out a true freedom that only comes from unhindered communion with Him?! In all His majesty, holiness and granduer, do you know how deeply He cares for you even down to the smallest details of your life? In His love, do you know that He is willing to go to any lengths, extreme or modest to remove everything in your life that hinders your love for Him??
Do you know this God I serve?
I desire eagerly that you would know Him and know Him more. He is my endless supply of everything I need for life and He can be yours. He has healed my body, renewed my mind, cleansed my soul, taken me out of darkness into His pure light. He has given me joy, peace, and a hunger for more of Him. Beloved, it says in His Word that if you draw near to Him, He draws near to you. If you seek Him, you will find Him. If you cry out, He will answer.
*** Read James 4:8, Jeremiah 29:13, Deuteronomy 4:29, Psalm 18:6
Do you know what He loves and what is important to Him?
Do you trust Him unwaveringly or are you harboring deep mistrust on some level (masked or forthright)?
At some point in our walk with Jesus we have to come to a moment of decision where we either decide He is altogether good and we can fully trust Him... orrrrr we shrink back and withhold (love, belief, trust, etc.).
Mistrust can be devastating in a marriage, a friendship or any relationship... how much more your relationship with your Maker. These times of withholding can become fault lines in the foundation of faith, which left untended will ultimately lead to catastrophic damage when the storms of life come. The scary truth is that it can happen to anyone, regardless of how long you have been a Christian. Your response is up to you.
Like Adam and Eve, we must come before the Lord in our "fig leaves". These are the inadequate coverings of wrong belief, unredeemed mindsets, and unbelief. When we bear it all before the Lord in truthful, humble inadequacy, we can then be clothed with Jesus has made a way for us and we then must take on a new covering, one birthed through death and sacrifice, a new Lordship.
Lord help me to never shrink away from you, content to live in my vastly inferior "fig leaves".
** Read the account of Adam & Eve in Genesis 3 asking the Holy Spirit to unlock truth to your heart in your quiet times with Him
Every. Single. Day I need to re-sign up to say "Yes" to Jesus, His leadership, His Lordship, His ways. This leads me to our children. We, like Abraham, have to put them in the Lord's hands and trust that He loves them more than we do.
Even on my BEST day, I cannot, as their mother in my own skill and ability cause their hearts to love Jesus. I cannot keep them alive or make them immune to sickness and disease in my own power. How much more am I grossly inadequate to cause them walk in the fullness of their calling and destiny, provide everything they need for happiness and success, bring them godly friends who with sharpen them in righteousness, pull the perfect spouse out of thin air and cause them to fall in love, ignite their hearts with fresh love and fire for God, inspiring them to choose holiness in the midst of trials and temptations... I am SO UNQUALIFIED to do all this... but Jesus is not!!!
What I can do is give them back to the One who breathed them into being, formed them in my womb and sang their life out before even one day was finished.
How much more can He orchestrate all those critical details and deepest desires of a mommas heart. And He does so in partnership with us. What a privilege! What a treasure! What a calling!
Never do I abandon my post as an intercessor, mentor, disciple maker, disciplinarian, nurturer and mother, but rather I take up this role with newfound strength, joy, peace and power because I am not doing this alone.
I have the arsenal of heaven at my disposal when I am in covenantal relationship with my Bridegroom King.
May the Lord help you and strengthen you today! You got this momma!
-xoxo-
"And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." John 14:13
"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." James 1:5
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7