Genesis 22:8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
Does God ever seem to be out of character to you? Has He done something in your life that just doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing that God would do? We puzzle over God’s goodness as opposed to what we see happening in the world.
In Genesis 22, God told Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac… and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” That was totally out of character for God. We do know that this is not something that God would ask, except that He was testing Abraham. But Abraham was a man of faith, and he did exactly as God has instructed.
As Abraham and Isaac made their way to the place of the sacrifice, Isaac noticed that they had a fire and wood but not a burnt offering. He said, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Very prophetically, Abraham said, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.”
We often think that in Genesis 22 God is asking something of Abraham, but the fact is that while Abraham offered something, God was giving from start to finish in the entire story. First, God gave the son of promise. God said, “Take your only son Isaac and offer him.” Well, Isaac wasn’t Abraham’s only son. He was the only son of promise, and that is what is meant here. He is called the son of promise because God had promised and given Abraham this son. The son that Abraham was offering had been given to him by God.
Second, God gave a substitute. The Bible tells us that Abraham found a ram caught in a thicket and offered him there in the stead of his son. God would later give His only begotten Son for Abraham and all those in this world. God’s only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, came through the lineage of Abraham.
Third, God gave a wife of promise. In the last verses of this passage, the Bible introduces Rebekah to us. She would be the wife of Isaac. You see, even as Abraham was plotting Isaac’s death, God was planning Isaac’s life.
God is the giver. You don’t give God anything that God hasn’t given you first. One who has given himself to God has nothing more to give and nothing more to withhold. That is what Abraham showed when God tested him. It wasn’t that Abraham was giving Isaac; Abraham was giving himself. If God has you, He won’t have to quibble over anything you think you have.
The good thing is that God’s plans are not limited to your prospects. Abraham fully intended to take the life of his son, yet Hebrews 11 tells us that by faith he offered up his only son Isaac “accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.” That is not the way it worked out. God just stayed Abraham’s hand, but Abraham fully intended to take the life of his son knowing that God could raise him from the dead.
Do you know when you succeed in life? You succeed when you yield the future to God, not when you have everything figured out. Did Abraham have everything figured out? No, he did not. Did he trust God? Yes, he did. God is the giver. We are simply the servants. We yield back to God everything that He gave to us in the first place, and our success comes not because we have everything figured out, but because we yield our future to God.