Listen For God's
Direction
September 8, 2003
The time will come in every man's life when he
will decide whether or not he's going to trust God. Until that
moment his faith in God will have been a convenient source of
comfort and encouragement. When the test arrives, God may seem
crazy and his demands absurd. The test will force you to either
follow human reasoning and abandon God's direction or abandon
human reasoning and follow God's direction. There will be no
wiggle room. No place to compromise. It will be God's way or
your way.
Abram (who later became Abraham) faced such tests.
At the age of 75 God told him to walk away from his home, his
father's household and his friends and neighbors. He was told to
desert the comforts of Ur and travel, without a map, to the land
God would show him (Genesis 12:1). Without the slightest
hesitation, Abram obeyed.
Years later, God told Abraham to do the
unthinkable. He commanded his servant to sacrifice his son,
Isaac. Such a command seems like an order from someone who has
gone mad. I've got three sons and I can't imagine the emotions
that raced through Abraham. Yet, Abraham obeyed. Why? Because he
knew that if he offered his son on the altar, God would raise
him from the dead (Hebrews 11:19). God had already given Isaac
to Sarah in her old age . . . she was 90 and Abraham was
100--we're talking old. Abraham accurately concluded that if God
could bring life to his body and that of his wife, he could give
life back to Isaac.
Of course, Abraham didn't have to plunge the knife
into his son's chest. Instead, God provided Abraham and Isaac
with a ram to sacrifice (Genesis 22:13). Why had God allowed his
servant to build an altar, bind his son, and place him on the
altar? He did it to test Abraham's faith. God wanted to see if
Abraham would depend on him when doing so violated all human
reasoning. He wanted to know if Abraham would trust him with the
one he treasured most. As we now know, Abraham passed the test.
In fact, his dependence on God prompted the Apostle Paul to
speak of him as "the man of faith" (Galatians 3:9).
It's one thing to admire Abraham's faith and
another to emulate it. Following in his steps involves listening
for God's direction.
We need to listen for God's direction when we read
the Bible and pray. In moral areas God's direction is usually
straightforward. He tells us to what to do--we're to love him,
love our neighbor and honor our parents. Sensing God's direction
in other areas isn't always so easy. It may require much time in
prayer. Yet, a man who craves God's direction will exercise the
discipline needed to tune into what God wants.
Once we know what God wants we the face the real
test. Like Abraham, we must immediately follow God's direction.
When God told Abram to leave his country, Abram left (Genesis
12:1, 4). When God told him to offer up Isaac, Abraham obeyed
(Genesis 22:2-3). He was able to do this because he knew that
whatever God had planned for him was better than any plan he
could devise.
How we act reveals what we believe about God more
than what we say. Abraham demonstrated his faith in God through
his actions. We must do the same.
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