The Worst Bible Story Ever... Or So I Thought

Have you ever heard the Bible story where God tells Abraham to offer his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice?

Brutal.

I'm not a Biblical scholar and I make no claim that my interpretation is wholey accurate, so go to Genesis 22 and read it for yourself. This story, it’s not warm or cozy. It’s difficult and unsettling. It hits you like a railroad tie across the face and, relatively speaking, it’s basically at the introduction of the Bible.

I could never wrap my head around this story. The whole thing felt grotesque. Why would a loving God propose such a test to a faithful servant? Especially after promising Abraham descendants as countless as the stars (Genesis 12:1–3; Genesis 15:5)? I’ll be honest: after having my own son, this story went from confusing to unbearable. I didn’t just dislike it, it made my stomach churn. I avoided it. I just could not reconcile a God of love with a God who would say: “Kill the boy you waited your whole life for, the son that you love so much.”

But the other day, I was blessed with an a-ha moment, and something shifted. Suddenly, the text was reframed and I saw a layer to this story that I had been missing.

Abraham Didn’t Obey Bitterly

I had always assumed Abraham trudged up that mountain resentful, angry, heart shattered, bitter, and pleading. I imagined how I would feel, and filled this story with my own reactions and emotions. I read between the lines to instill something that was never there.

Scripture doesn’t say Abraham was bitter. It never says that Abraham hesitated, argued, or complained. Not once. Instead, it says he did what he was told, no delay, no bargaining, no drama. No ifs, ands or buts (Genesis 22:3).

And you know what, he didn't do as he was told because he had to; he had free will. He did what he did because he had faith! He acted because he believed.

I had also *wrongly* assumed that when Isaac asked where the lamb was, that Abraham had lied to spare Isaac’s feelings, to spare them both the torment of honesty. But nope! Wrong again. He said: “God Himself will provide the lamb” (Genesis 22:8).

Abraham wasn’t being reckless. He was convinced that God would provide; Abraham expected provision before he ever saw it.

I did a further deep dive and found Hebrews 11:19, which takes it even further and says: “Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead.” It is important to note that nothing like that had ever happened before; Abraham had no reason to believe in resurrection. He walked up that mountain not expecting tragedy but expecting the impossible!

Can you imagine faith like that? Faith that acts before answers arrive. Faith that moves mountains because it knows Who moves them.

God didn’t test Abraham to learn something about him. He already knew Abraham’s heart. The test wasn’t informational for God, it was transformational for Abraham, and thousands of years later, for me.

Isaac Wasn’t a Prop on the Altar

Here’s the part that blindsided me: Isaac wasn’t dead weight in this narrative. He wasn’t a passive child. He was an instrumental participant and an active lead!

Abraham was well over 100-ish years old, and Isaac wasn’t a toddler. Many scholars estimate Isaac to be anywhere from late teens to early 30s. But we at least know that he was old enough and strong enough to carry the wood himself (Genesis 22:6).

In other words, a young, strong man versus an elderly father.

If Isaac didn’t want to climb that mountain, he wouldn’t have. If Isaac didn’t want to lie on that altar, Abraham surely wasn’t able to physically put him there.

So, Isaac cooperated, he submitted. Isaac trusted God just as much as his father did. *Mind blown*

Impact of Generational Faith

Here’s the thing, Isaac didn’t learn this kind of faith from lectures or being preached at. He learned it from seeing it lived out, every single day. He learned it by watching his father acting out faith.

Kids don’t know theology, but they do emulate what they see. They watch and will imitate how they see us act when we’re anxious or afraid, and what we do when plans fall through, how we treat others, and whether we turn to God in prayer as a ritual or in relationship.

Isaac’s faith wasn’t blind. It was inherited through exposure. And our kids won’t become what we tell them to be. They will become what they watch us be.

Whether we know that God will show up, even before there’s evidence to prove it; whether we trust that God will provide, even if it’s hard in the waiting. Cause faith isn’t believing just when it’s easy, nor when we're desperate; Faith is trusting that God is faithful in the easy, the hard, and the impossible, always.

Talk about convicting.

So, it matters that we:

• Trust God when money is tight; so, our kids learn that security isn’t found in bank accounts.
• Repent when we blow it; so, they learn that grace is real.
• Obey when obedience hurts, so they learn that God is worth it.
• Wait when answers to prayer seem to take forever, so we teach that delay isn’t denial. And sometimes, that “no” is the answer, even if we can’t understand why in the moment.

We think love equals safety, comfort, and insulation. But Abraham taught the opposite; he taught that even when God’s path is terrifying, that He is still trustworthy. That sacrifice is normal and that provision comes after obedience, not before.

Isaac didn’t climb the mountain because Abraham forced him to. He climbed because Abraham’s life preached: “If my father will follow this God anywhere, then this God must be worth following.”

Our kids don’t need perfect parents. They need parents whose decisions preach louder than their words.

The Story I Hated Became the Story I Needed

My question used to be: “What kind of God asks a father to sacrifice his son?”

Now I see: “God provides the sacrifice so we don’t have to.”

Sound familiar?

What Does This Mean 

Every single one of us has something on the altar, whether it’s the outcome we insist on, the plans that we have made, the timeline we demand, the way we think things must go. God leads us to the same emotional edge Abraham faced to give us opportunity to lay it down, trusting that what God has for us instead is so much better.

The Legacy I Want for My Child

I don’t want to raise Little Man to be a religious kid, to do right out of a sense of legalism. I want to raise him to trust God even when life doesn’t make sense, to have hope even when circumstances seem dire, to obey even when it costs something, because he knows that God loves him. And finally, for him to believe that God is faithful, not because I told him, but because he saw it.

I can’t control Little Man’s future, and I can’t force him to take the path I would want him to walk, but I can walk my mountain in front of him. I can surround him with people who set examples I want him to see. Abraham did and Isaac saw, and that faith traveled generationally. Abraham set the example for all of his descendants, which are, as promised, as plentiful as the stars in the sky, and include myself and my family, and my children, and their children, and their children….

This was reinforced to me again last night, when we had dinner with a lovely couple who have been faithful believers for decades, and have raised their children, not just telling them how to live faithfully, but showing them. And that in turn has been passed down not just through their own lineage, but through the lines of everyone they meet. It is a real blessing to know them.   

And maybe that’s the real point of Genesis 22: Not a father almost losing a son, but a son, and the generations to come, gaining a God worth following.

I Know This Much Is True

There’s nothing quite like a life-threatening illness to make you hit the pause button and really consider what is special, what really matters....

I’ve had a few months of contemplation, but it didn’t take a few months to figure it out. In fact, as soon as the doctor finished speaking that sentence, “unfortunately, the test results are back, and it is cancer,” everything that mattered most started rolling through my head.

Family.

Friends.

Prayer.

Life.

The third may surprise some people. It kind of even surprised me. But it was glaringly apparent by the order of the phone calls I made and messages I sent. My family and closest friends, then the people from the church I grew up in (The Lillooet Gospel Chapel), even though I hadn’t really spoken to them for years. I knew immediately that I needed prayer and I needed God.

I became a Christian at the age of 13. To me that meant something, and it took years to get there. Some may say that at 13 I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I did. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, but I was given the freedom to search and decide for myself. And search I did. I went to Sunday school with my Christian friends as a child, and I paid attention. Then I studied that which the Jehovah Witnesses teach. I attended services with a Jehovah Witness family twice a week, I had one on one study sessions, and I attended seminars and conferences, until concluding that belief system false. Picture that, from a 10 year old. I wrote a 20+ page paper on my findings of Mormonism. I studied the Theory of Evolution, and reincarnation. I searched, I compared, and I contemplated. I did my very own version of The Case for Christ. If you did the math you’ll know that this does not mean that I ran a few Google searches; this was the age of card catalogues, and encyclopaedias, reading the actual literature. There was no Bing or Yahoo, heck there wasn’t even dial-up!  

Yet, that summer night when I prayed for the very first time and accepted Christ as my personal Savior and asked for His redemption, none of what I had researched was on my mind. I don’t remember what was said or what exactly led up to me coming to that final conclusion, I just knew that it was time and that it was right. (I do remember that I was missing my most favourite game – Capture the Flag in the Dark, and that didn’t matter either). Jesus was calling and I was overcome; I knew that Jesus was Lord and I was so full of faith that I could feel Him.

After that, I kept the faith and returned to The Lillooet Gospel Chapel. I had so much faith and trust in God that I had no fear. I can clearly remember climbing a near-90 degree mountain-face that I had no business climbing, especially with no rope and never having done so before, but singing as I climbed, “I can do all things, all things, ALL THINGS, through Christ who strengthens me!” (Phil. 4:13)

I remember scaring the heck out of my youth leaders by walking to and from youth group and events, and not understanding why they didn’t agree that Christ was all the protection I needed to walk home alone in the midnight hours, on dark unlit trails in an area plagued with bear, cougar, and the occasional drug user.

I was strong and courageous with no need for fear because God was with me! (Josh. 1:9)

I had faith larger than a mustard seed, and if necessary I could have moved mountains! (Matt. 17:20) I didn’t need to move them though because they were perfectly placed 😉

At 15, I was baptized in Seton Lake, the same lake that is today my happiest of happy places. It was a conscious choice, one not taken lightly, and not made until I thoroughly understood what it meant.

June 1995

When I was 16, God literally saved my life. I believed it then, and I still believe that now. If you had seen that GMC Jimmy crunched to within an inch of my life, you’d pause and consider it as well. I left that accident scene with not one scratch, not one bruise, and not an ounce of sour cream on me. This was before I knew about the art of proper load securement. I had hundreds of dollars of groceries in the car, bulk sized tin cans, and 4 litre pails of sour cream for taco night, enough to feed the entirety of Lake of the Trees Bible Camp for days. (It occurs to me now that I have no idea who paid for the groceries I ruined.... I probably owe Lake of the Trees a good chunk of money). 

Despite that, shortly afterward, I began to follow my own plan, and do as I wished, with no regard to what plan God may have had for me. I drank a little. I smoked a little. I lost that faith of my youth. Then I drank a lot, and smoked some more. By my late teens I made a conscious decision to turn my back on God and live my own life. I listened to the voice in my head that said God didn’t care, and that He didn’t hear me. I still believed He existed, but I believed the voice that said I wasn’t His and that I may as well walk away. So I did.    

I know this much is true: I was wrong.

But it took me years to realize my mistake. Many, many years and a cancer diagnosis.

There isn’t much like a potentially life-threatening illness to shake you to your core, but it does before you even have a chance to realize that you’re shook. Family, friends, prayer, life. You may substitute the word 'prayer' with God.

I made my phone calls, I asked for prayers. It was time to find a church. I researched, I Googled, I tried to decide what church was best for me. I, I, I…. I applied all the reason, and all the logic to making my decision. Then I remembered, this is the kind of stuff where a person should ask for spiritual direction. So I prayed, kind of... not really believing that I would be heard and definitely not that I would get answer, but I prayed anyway, then did the equivalent of a roulette wheel spin and landed on Beaverlodge Alliance Church.  

I thought it was just a coincidence at the time, though at the same time I knew how the Holy Spirit can work. At this time, one Bible verse in particular kept appearing. It was sent to me, it randomly popped up on Facebook, and in a meme, and then finally in a Sunday sermon (Wonder Working Power – The Power of God in Suffering). At the very beginning of this sermon, the pastor, Pastor Greg, said he had a different sermon all planned and ready for the day, but that late the night before he felt compelled by God to rewrite it. What I heard: “This is for you, kid.”

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
(Jere. 29:11)

The pastor kidded that the original would have had people weeping at the altar because it was that good. The rewrite made that happen anyway.

I went up to that altar with no regard of what anyone else thought, of what Dear Husband thought (this was the first time he had come to church with me), of the emotion that I was showing, and with no thought to the “stranger danger” that is typically so prevalent in me. It didn’t even matter than I was “sick,” I had forgotten even that for a few moments. God showed up and I needed to meet Him, right there, right then and that was the only thing that mattered. It was time and it was right.

The pastor prayed for me, and for my Dear Husband. I don’t remember all that he said, though I know he prayed for healing as well, not just physical, but spiritual. I was full of hope, but I didn’t have the same faith that I had when I was young, it was tinged with skepticism, and disbelief.

Now, for a week and a half before this I had been full of anxiety. I had found another lump, in my other breast, and it was painful. It felt just like the lump that was previously cut out of my other breast. It was there. Dear Husband felt it. We both stressed about it while waiting for my appointment with the surgeon Monday morning. Sunday afternoon during the sermon, I had forgotten about it, for the first time in days. And when I woke Monday morning, it was gone. I couldn’t feel it, neither could Dear Husband. A spot that we had felt dozens of times in the last week, had cried about, and panicked about, was gone. The surgeon couldn’t find it, and neither could the ultrasound. It was gone. I was still full of skepticism, and I thought of all the reasons how it could be explained away by science and biology. But also in the back of my mind I heard “God’s wonder working power is in the instantaneous miracles.”

I leaned a little closer and the God signs kept appearing.

I know this much is true: God is patient.

A few months later, during a Sunday a sermon (Nehemiah, Rise Up and Build - Identity), Pastor Greg said he had asked God what else He was going to do that day and part of the answer was: “I’m going to pour out my love into somebody’s heart who hasn’t experienced my love in a long time. There’s going to be a breakthrough, there’s going to be a wall that’s broken down where they have been trying to hide behind, this wall of rejection…. Ask my people to come.” 

To which I felt called, but I replied: “No.” I said, “No stinking way am I going up there. God, if you mean me, You are going to have to call me right out by name!” And then He did. Pastor Michelle walked clear across that church, faster than I could sneak out without being seen, as was typically the case. I don’t remember what she said, and that’s not important, but I knew that in the words that she was speaking, in that very moment, that she was being used by God to call me out by name, just as I had the nerve to demand. So started my journey into restoration, and this is when I really started to lean in.

Around this time, I started to have a pain in my side, similar to a stitch that you get when you run too hard for too long, but it was (and is) fairly persistent and constant. My doctor referred me for an abdominal ultrasound, which was done within days, and when the results came in he called to have me come in that day, as soon as possible. I’d been there before. The last call like that that I received from him, ended up with him telling me I had breast cancer. I was not expecting good news. This also happened to be the day of restoration group, and I committed to going to that before heading to the doctor. During group, a verse illuminated itself to me from the study guide:

“So do not be anxious about tomorrow. 
God will take care of your tomorrow too.” 
(Matt. 6:34)

During the 25 minute drive to the doctor’s office afterward, I was scared. And I prayed. I prayed for a sign, and I started to pray for God to make the very next song on the radio be “Healer” by Kari Jobe if….. But I don’t finish the prayer because a person shouldn’t demand signs, and I know you can’t put God in a box. I remembered that from Sunday school.

I know this much is true: God is kind.

Seconds later, the very next song is “Healer” by Kari Jobe. Followed by “Let Me Love You” by DJ Snake and Justin Bieber, of all the people. I see the title scroll across the dashboard of my Jeep, but I’m too overcome to actually hear the song. Followed finally by “The Sun is Rising” by Britt Nicole, a song I had never heard before or since.

When life has cut too deep and left you hurting

The future you had hoped for is now burning

And the dreams you held so tight lost their meaning

And you don't know if you'll ever find the healing

You're gonna make it

You're gonna make it

And the night can only last for so long

Whatever you're facing

If your heart is breaking

There's a promise for the ones who just hold on

Lift up your eyes and see

And the sun is rising

And the sun is rising

Sun is rising

And the sun is rising

Every high and every low you're gonna go through

You don't have to be afraid I am with you (I am with you)

In the moments you're so weak you feel like stopping

Let the hope you have light the road you're walking

You're gonna make it.

And I knew I was going to be OK. I didn’t know what OK looked like, and still don’t, but I trust that OK I will be, regardless, even if that doesn’t mean that I am completely healed.

I know this much is true: I will be OK.

I was finally able to let go and let God. I was no longer plagued with constant uncontrollable fear and worry, something I had been struggling with for months. The panic attacks and uncontrollable sobbing stopped.

Not saying it’s been easy; there are definitely still moments and dysfunctional thoughts. No one told me when diagnosed with cancer that the hardest part would be survivorship. It is. I still don’t have that faith of a child to see me through. I’m still scared, but now one of my deepest prayers is: “God give me the strength to be able to sing ‘it is well with my soul.’”

Incidentally, I still don’t know what this spot on my liver is. I’ve had further tests, and an MRI, it’s still inconclusive. Maybe it’s just my turn to be patient and to try to demonstrate trust….  

I don’t believe that cancer is from God, but I do believe that God can pull a positive from a negative, and that He can cause any and everything to work together for good (Rom. 8:28). I do not know why I got cancer, and I am not thankful for it, but I am thankful for opportunities to grow in faith, for encounters with Christ, for a church to call home, and for the people I’ve been blessed with to help me while I spiritually relearn to walk. I'm thankful that God is good, and more patient, loving and forgiving than anyone deserves. I'm thankful that God saw me through, and continues to see me through, because there is so much more. Further Up and Further In, into the adventure and life that God has planned for me.

If you are interested in viewing the sermons referenced above by Pastor Greg Clark of the Beaverlodge Alliance Church, the links are provided above, as well as below:
Wonder Working Power – The Power of God in Suffering 

Nehemiah, Rise Up and Build - Identity