It’s not that Genesis is my favorite book, but I think origin stories are cool. It shows the beginnings of our history as Christians, the simple demonstrations of faith in those times and how ultimately those simple forms hold true today. It lets us see truly how unchanging and faithful God is, how pivotal obedience to God’s word is and how immutable the Word is.

In Genesis chapter 12 vs 10, there was a famine in the land, of such epic proportions that Abraham packed up his worldly goods and headed to Egypt to hunker down for “winter was coming” (so to speak). He survived the winter, but not without some drama. In the end, it all worked out for his good. This too, is a story for another day. For now, I want to draw our attention to the concept of obedience to God’s instructions.

Now, a few chapters later, in Genesis chapter 26 vs 1,
another famine showed its terrible face in the land and this was more gruesome than the one that had been in Abraham’s time. Isaac prepped to head south (metaphorically speaking of course) for the winter, like every individual with commonsense would, and again the location for this was Egypt. I imagined that his father had told him the story of his own famine days along with the “she is my sister antics” but that is another tale for another day. God came to Isaac and instructed Isaac not to go… God showed up and gave him RHEMA.

RHEMA – a specific word to a specific person regarding a specific situation. This is the instruction of what to do in a situation delivered in real-time.

Isaac stayed in the land as instructed. He LIED about his wife being his sister because he was afraid that the men of Gerar would kill him for her hand, because she was beautiful, he tried to save his head. I’m pretty sure his actions were not without cause. However, the King of the Gerar happened to have seen him with ‘’his sister’’ in a way and manner that was ‘’clearly not sisterly’. Abimelech basically berated Isaac for this dastardly action and gave an edict protecting him from any such molestation that he, Isaac, had earlier imagined.

Picture that event, replay it in our time-

News Flash!

Instagram!

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‘’ISAAC, ‘’SHE’S MY SISTER’’

“The construction mogul Isaac lied about his marital status, claiming his wife was his sister!’’ etc …

He would become known as a dishonest man, and nobody would ever want to do business with him!

Yet, we have the Bible telling us in Verse 12 that Isaac sowed in the land with the odds against him and he reaped a hundred-fold!

Rhema works regardless of the bumbling we may have done. The word of grace named upon one’s life is sure regardless of prior misdemeanors. Praise the Lord!

The key is obedience to the rhema God has given!
Observe also that the Lord relates to us as individuals.

Out of the blue, God speaks to him, tells him “ Take your son”, (and just so Abraham doesn’t become lawyer-like and look for loopholes in God’s statement, God adds) “… your only son and sacrifice him on a mountain I will show you”. Now Isaac, Abraham’s son by Sarah, was a special child. He was a child of promise, spoken about when Abraham was 75 years old and Sarah his wife was 65. It took 25 years for Isaac to be born, and suddenly God showed up to collect!!!.

It would have been easy, OK scratch that…it would have been EASIER to handle if God asked for him when he was still a toddler. But the guy was probably in his teens (some bible scholars argue that Isaac was probably in his 30’s, which adds to the wonder of it all, but I lean towards late teens to early 20’s because a child would not be able to carry the wood for burning the sacrifice up the designated mountain).

God asked for Isaac at that point in time and life that Abraham could begin to see the fine young man taking shape within this youth. He could see his dreams coalescing in this fine specimen. Then “Sacrifice him on a mountain I will show you” hits Abraham like an arrow.

Dude (I use this word not in a bid to disrespect Abraham but in awe of him) didn’t flinch. He was packed and heading in the direction he was told…
He had three nights to bail on the thought! Three nights of battling this evil idea (how else would you term it! 3 nights of waiting to hear God say, its fine, you can go back home now).

I excluded the days, not because he wasn’t thinking about it, its just that when you have a task at hand, you can subsume yourself into it, like walking to the said mountain. At night, however, the words and pictures it conjures come out to play.

It didn’t make sense! This was a child of promise! He was supposed to be the source of the world’s blessing and he is about to sacrificed! Or maybe that very reason was what kept him going “You can’t bless the world if you are dead and God doesn’t break his word, I’m sure he has a plan”.

He gets there… and in his heart he had already sacrificed Isaac.

The doing so impressed God that he swore by Himself! Abraham had God repeating Himself “Because you have not withheld your son, thine only son… I will bless you… Your descendants”. Gen 22 vs 12-19

When I meet Abraham in heaven, I will walk up to him, and shake him with two hands and ask him

“Sir, what kept you going those three days?”

The Holy Spirit asked me to study the book of Ecclesiastes, so I did. I noted the verses that jumped out at me and I took them with me to meditate, to beat out its true meaning as it were. The verse below is one of such verses …

Chapter 1 verse 13 specifies the fact that the focus of his (the Preacher) study was “human business”. In much human wisdom is much vexation. Human knowledge has no “hope” in it. Ax heads made of iron do not float. Seas do not part, you cannot walk 40 years in the desert without one person dying, your clothes growing with you and other strange things…this is not human knowledge. Human knowledge is about learning limits…and pushing those limits…the knowledge of God is understanding how limitless His love and power towards us is.

Chapter 1 speaks about the futility in hard work and quest for knowledge, considering that those deeds and wealth will not last forever. Nothing new is born under the sun, what we simply have is a revamp of the old with a thin veneer of newness. I understood the very despondency of human wisdom, there is no ultimate truth, only the continuous trek up the dune, and upon breasting it, you find there is yet another crest. You might say, the journey, not the destination is the important thing. I agree, but there is no hope in this journey for the culmination of man’s wisdom. Only the Word of God and the Works of God are eternal. His stance on a matter bears the stamp of eternity and perfection, you cannot improve on it! You cannot 2.0 it!

We seek to better our surrounding by learning of them, but let us be reminded that God is the author of eternity and the pursuit of the knowledge of Him holds more value than man himself.