Stripped Away

I’m learning that we are often asked to give things to God. In doing so, the person we made of ourselves is stripped away. All that we know about who we are changes. We are then changed into the people who God wants us to be. I get this image of a couple when I think about this. As a girl I feel like, in relationships we change who we are because we love someone. We change all that we know about ourselves and we begin to give up things because of it… whether it be friends, family, passions, hobbies, music…whatever it is we willingly give it up… why then when it comes to God do we hold back. We willingly give him part of ourselves like “God, you can have my career and my family, but God you can’t have my friends and my relationship with my boy/girlfriend.” In doing that, we are trying to contain an uncontainable God. In holding back stuff from God, we are inhibiting ourselves from growing as Christians… Is it easy to give up things to God? I’ll be honest it’s not, but sometimes that’s all that we can do. When we get a point where we can no longer control a part of our life that is when we need to be stripped away the most.   

I was talking with a friend of mine before chapel today, and she was talking to me about the story of Abraham being tested. The story comes from Genesis 22:1-19. Here is what the first 14 verses say:

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

What my friend said was this: we are often asked to give things up to God or like I said earlier we are stripped of things. In this case, we are like Abraham going up the mountain. We are to carry what we are being asked to give up to the top of our “mountain.” Here is where we drift from Abraham though… We often get up to a certain spot on the mountain and say “okay, God this is far enough. You know what I’m going to head back do the mountain and the thing you asked me to give up… yeah I’m taking that back down with me because I know you’ll give it back to me.”  What did Abraham do? He went to the top of the mountain put Isaac on the altar and raised the dagger…why? Because he was willing to follow God whatever it took! Even going up the mountain, he could have turned back because he knew God would provide, but he never turned back. Like Abraham, we have to be willing to give up things whether it be our career, our friends, our family, or whatever else it may be…  Are there going to be times where God will provide for us or give us what we gave up? Sure, but that shouldn’t be an expectation… What if it ends up being like the situation of Job… where he lost what he held dear to him…He never cursed God… At the end of the story, he was blessed. (Like 3x what he had) God may be having you give up something because he has something better for you!

So I challenge you, seek God, and see if he is asking you to give something up… be willing to go to the top of the mountain and completely surrender whatever it is to God! I know I’ve been asked to give up stuff… I may not like it, but I have grown closer to God because of it! As weird as it will sound giving up things to God is so freeing… I want you guys to experience this freedom!

God Bless!

He has made you beautiful!