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What is the most difficult thing to give up in your life? Imagine finally to have a child at the age of 50, and you are asked to give him/her away. In the infamous story in Genesis 22, Abraham was asked to offer his one and only son (although Abraham has several sons, Issac was the only one promised by God) whom he bore in twice that age. We all know that the story was a test of Abraham's faith, but more importantly, it was a foreshadowing of how God is going to give His One and only Son as the sacrificial lamb. We will reflect on the first point in this devotion.

The passage that demonstrates the essence Abraham's faith is painted in the conversation between the aging father (old enough to be the son's great-grandfather) and the son in verses 7 to 8. With the hindsight bias, we know that God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering, (v.2) but Issac didn't. We should know that Issac was not a naive child anymore in this story because verse 6 says that he was the one carrying all the fire woods for the burnt offering when climbing Mount Moriah after three to four days journey. The word translated as "boy" can be used to describe someone all the way from infancy to a young man. (or a servant or junior officer) Issac was old enough to at least notice that they didn't bring any sacrificial animal with them, so he asked. As a father, I understand how hard it was for Abraham to heard this question. Thousands of thoughts must have been going, and emotions must have been rushing through his mind. He must have tons of questions himself. That's why his answer was so significant: "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." He believes that God will provide even to the point when he raised the knife and about to kill his son. What is really remarkable is that Issac also trusts that God will provide, even to the point that allowing his 100+-year-old father to bound him and laid him on the burning altar and didn't run away when he realized that he was the lamb to be offered. Rember, he was a young man strong enough to carry woods for a burnt offering to climb the mountain.

God himself will provide. What a statement! How many of us have that kind of faith? No wonder Abraham was called the father of faith. Share to your devotional partner about an experience which you trusted that God would provide and He did. Pray for each other that we will have enough faith to believe even when it was impossible to believe.