10/27/09 Isaac, kids, and God

But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." Then he said, "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." And the two of them went together.  Genesis 22:7-8

I always wondered about how Isaac felt while this was going on.  I wavered between thinking that he knew how much his father loved him and so he trusted him, and/or that maybe he was too young to understand.  But clearly he was not too young to understand.  So if he knew how much his father loved him then wouldn’t it be confusing to be placed on the alter to be sacrificed?  And that opens up a myriad of other things, like, the potential for distrust of his father, anger, etc. even after God provided the sacrifice and he was saved. 

Then I got to thinking about how we are with our kids now days.  For most parents these days we don’t dare to say ‘no’ to them (if we are being honest). 

We fear being rejected by them. That they won’t love us, that they won’t know that they are loved, that they will not be emotionally whole if we have to punish them. We fear what others will think.  We fear.

I considered how Abraham might have felt and how Isaac might have felt.  Abraham’s unflinching obedience is completely foreign to us now days when it comes to rearing our children.  But just now I realize that we must have a love for a bigger and better thing than our kids, because to put them in a place so high puts too much pressure on them.  They don’t want and definitely don’t need to be revered as god(s).  they find comfort in the understanding that they are not god, that parents trust and obey someone bigger than they are.

A child has a sense that he is not in control and that there is a God hopefully that is.  They fight for control because of the sin nature in all of us.  But what they desire, like all of us, is to know that there is someone who is stronger and smarter and wiser and more capable than them that has the reigns.  We do our children a disservice when we do not obey God unflinchingly as Abraham did.  We teach them that God is not sovereign and that He is not really God at all to us.  We must take our children off of His throne and give them to Him in obedience, and place them on His alter.  Contrary to how we might think they would feel, they will be much happier knowing that they are not in charge.  And they will be much happier, knowing that we also are not in charge.  For they see us as we really are, human.

Jeanne