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?”