The Finality of Sacrifice

The story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac has been a theme in my mind for years.  If you look over older posts and Facebook statuses, you will see, I think about this often.  So often, people must think me morbid, or unable to correlate my life to anything else. To those who would say I need another analogy, I would say, the Truth of the Word is healing my spirit in the land in which I find myself.  In that land are many mountains with many alters.  Some represent a dream, a person, a status, etc.

I am a deep thinker, I ruminate on ideas, I want to learn, I remember, I see where I need more help.  I see where I need to revisit the Truth and let the Spirit teach me in the whispers of the written Word. 

Recently I've been thinking about many tangible things I need to be willing to sacrifice.  In doing so, in naming things, people, dreams, etc.,  I realized that in thinking about the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, I didn't take the sacrifice to its full end.  Instead, I placed my prize on the alter, secured it, and walked away from it.  Sometimes I'd get all the way down the mountain before the urge to check on it got so strong, I'd go running back.  Upon finding the item, I'd often secure it even tighter.

I have so many alters with so many living things strapped to them.  Because they are alive, I must check on them.  I check on them so often they aren't even left to die.  Instead I'm giving them water and food each time I see if they are still there, secure as the day I "left" them.  So, my imagery changed from Abraham walking up a mountain, knowing in faith God would keep His promise, to me-some crazed version of myself more like the woman from Misery or the creeper from Silence of The Lambs.

A sacrifice is only sacrificed once it is killed.  I haven't been willing to kill any of mine.  I've kept them all alive, waiting for God to give the okay to untie them.  Sure, that is how it worked in Abraham's case.  And the good thing here is that the killing of my sacrifices is in analogy only.  But the faith is the same.  Until the  faith that God can raise up and restore that sacrifice is so overpowering and causes my faith to take action, well, God cannot raise what isn't put down.

I see now that I need to hand over the desires that may or may not be given back to me.  But each time I sacrifice whatever it is on an alter, God will give another opportunity to raise an ebenezer.  And that is truly the beauty God can bring from ashes.   

Stacy Rapp ©