The Call of God (Hebrews 11), Part 9

Faith and Reason.

“Stop!” Abraham heard God command in no uncertain terms. It was time to interrupt Abraham’s obedient display of faith. A ram ensnared in a nearby bush would be the substitution for Abraham’s son Isaac who had been awaiting his fate upon the hilltop altar. Listening to God had brought Abraham and Isaac here, and listening to God would take them home. This father and son were given a new vision of God. He is God the Great Provider.

This is the story, first recorded in Genesis, to which Hebrews 11:17-19 refers. It’s an unnerving and unsettling story in many ways. We’re left feeling less sure of the boundaries within which God contains Himself. God had emphatically labeled the pagan practice of child sacrifice a “detestable” thing, a practice “I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” Yet God used Abraham and Isaac as actors in a display that would foreshadow the ransoming sacrifice of God’s One and Only Son, Jesus, two millennia later. How could Abraham have agreed to obey God’s direction, not knowing what the outcome of his obedience would be? The author of Hebrews explains “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”

Abraham reasoned.

Reason, the process of thinking in logical, orderly and rational ways, is a gift of God to us humans. It enables us to take what we know about God and this world and infer conclusions that then inform how we ought to behave. Abraham, listening to God’s directive to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice, needed to use a high level of reason to be obedient.

He first reasoned that having heard this command spoken directly from God, it must be a good command—God is good, therefore His every command will result in ultimate good for His followers. Abraham reasoned that he could entrust the outcome of his obedience to a good God.

Secondly, Abraham reasoned that God is all-powerful. A humanly speaking hope-destroying event such as death was as nothing to God. God would be able to bring Isaac back to life. Abraham could see compatibility between God’s promise to build his family through Isaac and God’s command to sacrifice Isaac.

But “Reason,” muses Dante in Paradiso, “even when supported by the senses, has short wings.” Abraham must have second-guessed himself with every step he and Isaac took climbing the hill toward the spot God had directed him. Reason moved his feet but his heart was aching. Wasn’t it more reasonable that he a centenarian should die, Abraham must have thought, rather than this young son of his—this son of the promise? Abraham needed something to support and gird up his commitment to reason. So Abraham added to reason the wingtips of trust.

Trust took Abraham the final steps of that distressing trek. Trust kept his ears open, listening for the slightest sound of God’s voice. Trust focused Abraham’s mind on the only One who is ultimately trustworthy, so that even the promise took second place to the Promiser. And trust enabled Abraham to hear God halt the test and joyfully exclaim, “because you have done this…I will surely bless you…and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Each of us walk a similar trek. Subconsciously we reason out each action we take, each decision we make. But do these reasons include the goodness and greatness of God? Do we consciously remember what we know to be true of Him? Do we consider His great love for each of us and His unlimited power as we rationalize how we live?

To entrust ourselves to the One who is unmatched in trustworthiness is the pinnacle of reason. Faith and reason together lift us up over the valleys and crags we face in our lives and bring us to the blessing God promised us through Abraham and finally accomplished through His Son Jesus. Listen to God’s voice and find faith and reason come together.

 

Thirty-one Ordinary Prayers, #21

Prayer of Plain and Simple Praise (A Paraphrase of Psalm 135)

There is only One in this universe who deserves our adoration—You, LORD. Your name ought to be featured on every flag, inscribed on every banner, stamped on every endeavor we undertake here on planet earth. You deserve to be praised by each of us who are Your servants, Your children, Your people freed from the terrible bondage of sin.

For You are good. Every intention of Your heart, every word of Your mouth and every action You take is wholly good and will bring complete and ultimate good to those who love You, LORD. We praise You.

You are great. You are the only uncreated Being—existing without beginning or end, unparalleled in Your position of supremacy. All creatures will one day bow before You. We praise You.

You are powerful. You are able to accomplish anything You intend; Everything You created on earth, in sky and sea is for Your pleasure. What better reason for us to exist, and what is more fitting than to say we praise You?

You are personally involved in each of our lives. Nations rise and fall according to Your ultimate plan to bless humanity through Your Son, Jesus Christ. We praise You.

You are loving and compassionate. Your mercy and grace are released into the lives of those who welcome Your presence. One day Your justice will finally wash over this earth and bring all things wrong to right. We praise You.

Until then, You patiently watch as people create their own gods outs of whatever they value most—anything they think will satisfy their pursuit of pleasure. Those gods are no more truly alive than the people who hope in them. They are nothing more than hollow, empty shells about to topple, taking their subjects down with them.

But You, LORD, stand firm and dependable, supporting, strengthening, and giving solid hope to those who bow only to You. There is nothing truer than for us to say, plain and simply, “We praise You!”

 

(Photo Credit: Sunset over the Vercors mountains, seen from Grenoble. By © Guillaume Piolle /, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4994157)