Linda Dillow- Part 4- Final part/ hardest part / surrender

Surrender---- what a hard word to hear/ but  so necessary for Christian life. For the last session, Linda Dillow focused on surrender and taught this by using  the book of Job and on Abraham/ Isaacs -Gen. 22


First she said Job was blameless and upright, feared God, and he shunned evil


-- "There is none like him on the earth." ( Job 1:8)


In ONE DAY, he lost his oxen, donkeys, and their servants to Sabean raider, his sheep and their servants to "fire from God from heaven”, his camel and their servants to Chaldean raiders, and his sons and daughters are killed in a tornado. He lost so much, but he still worshipped God. He reacted by tearing his robe, falls to the ground, and then, he worshipped. In his despair, he still praises God, even though he considers God as the One who has done all these things. He blesses the name of the Lord. He does not charge God with wrong.


She then read Genesis 22: 1-14 to us. Genesis 22


Abraham Tested


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


“Here I am,” he replied.


2 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.”


3 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. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 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.”


6 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, 7 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?”


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


9 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. 10 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.


12 “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.”


13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 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.”

She pointed out key things to learn from this story. Abraham dearly, dearly loved Issac, but was willing to do what God had called him to do,…even though he did not understand why. God had a ram there…God knew all the time How He would help Abraham……. He didn’t want his son, but He did want Abraham’s heart. She noted that Abraham had to surrender his understanding, affections for Isaac, and his own will to do what he did or did not want to do.






The most important lessons I learned were: 1.We must will to do the will of God in preference to our own will. 2. The Will of God will never take you where the Grace of God won’t protect you! 3. Not my will, but His. Not my timetable, but His!






Then, she asked us to take a piece of paper out and to write down what thing we did NOT want to surrender to God, but God was calling us to surrender… i.e. a healthy marriage, a healthy body, a healthy child, a happy life, a rich life, etc. She then asked us to take that paper, and place it on a wooden slab (a sign of giving the “thing” over to God’s control (as if we can really have control either way). I KNOW I don’t have control over John-Michael’s health or his happiness, but it is so hard for me to say,” John-Michael’s is all yours, LORD”. I did go through the act of giving/ surrendering John-Michael to God and not allowing myself to pretend I can control anything. I did ask God to please never let John-Michael to struggle with His goodness towards John-Michael..and for John-Michael to never struggle that God loves him. I suppose those are the most important things, anyway……


Surrendering still,


Rachel


                                               John-Michael and me.....