Sweetly Broken

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

I heard a wonderful song today that had the lyric, "He doesn't want your Isaac. He wants you." If you've been in the church for a bit, you've most likely heard the story of Abraham and his son Isaac, promised to Abraham by God. Abraham and his wife Sarah, desperately desired a son, and God promised them one. Many years later, in their old age, that promise came to pass with the birth of Isaac. Isaac was precious to his parents. More precious than words can describe, yet one day the Father directed Abraham to take his son to a mountaintop and offer him as a sacrifice to Him.

It's easy to read this story in Scripture and be unmoved by it, even if we're parents. We know that God did not have Abraham sacrifice his son, that it was Abraham's surrender and trust that he sought. We know he would not ask us to kill one of our children. He wouldn't. But rest assured, He does require our "Isaac," in whatever form(s) he may take.

In one of my prayer journals I've written, "Am I willing to surrender to Him any and all of my most precious dreams or desires, even if I believe them to be a promise from the Father Himself?" I have had Isaac's in my life. So have you. Likely, we still do. God will bring their presence before us. He will ask us, indeed command us to yield them up to Him, to "sacrifice them" as a means of showing our surrender, our trust, and our worship of Him above any and all things and people. Our Isaac's do not go quietly or painlessly. They don't because we cling to them, love them, and yes, even worship them. They can be relationships, professions, places we live, fellowships we attend, and visions we believe He's given us, that He has given us. They can be the fulfillment of promises we are convinced He's made to us, that He has made to us. Whatever they might be, He knows what place they have in our hearts, and if He sees them filling our hearts and pushing Him outside of them, He will call us to sacrifice them to Him. To "die" to the hold they have on us in order that we might truly live in and unto Him. In that is the pain. In our surrender of these, we are broken, but as the beautiful chorus goes, we are "sweetly broken." Only those who have obeyed in such a sacrifice understand the truth of this. My Isaac's have been many, and every surrender of them was accompanied by brokenness. But in the surrender I experienced the truth of being sweetly broken. I first learned the truth of this as a very young man in Christ.

I'd been saved for a year, and in that time I'd come to know a young woman and fall in love with her. Yet it was an unhealthy and toxic relationship and love. God knew this. I didn't, though it brought me deep grief. Also during that year, I felt a calling to leave all and go out to a Bible College more than a thousand miles away. I was willing to go, but unwilling to let go of the relationship. I wanted to try and maintain it from a distance and somehow see it come to full fruit. He made it clear this couldn't be so. It had to be surrendered. I couldn't fully follow Him and hold to what wasn't of Him. Painfully, brokenly, I obeyed. I'll never forget that first lesson in surrender. The deadly hold that this relationship held me in was broken the day I left for the college, never to return. More, I experienced a peace, joy, and freedom I'd never known. I knew what it was to be sweetly broken. I would know it again and again in the coming years. I continue to learn that He doesn't seek my Isaac. He seeks me.

Who and what might be your Isaac's? Have you come to the place of being sweetly broken in them, or, do you cling to them all the more? He is not the God who takes things from us. He takes us. To Himself. He doesn't want your Isaac. He wants you. Does He have you? Will you be sweetly broken?

Blessings,
Pastor O