After brainstorming and waiting on answers that weren’t coming I gave in and thought, “Oh well, here we go, "into thickets of wildest guesswork." Perhaps you recall that Albus Dumbledore quote, but it’s okay if you don’t.
I still didn’t know what was next when I sat thinking about that word, “thicket," feeling like I was wandering off into a proverbial wild thicket with nothing but a guess about what to do next when something inside me whispered, "Just like Abraham."
Wait, what? God had my attention now. After asking and asking I had an answer...
Long ago, before even Jesus lived, God asked his servant Abraham to take his son Isaac and go into the wilderness and perform a sacrifice, an offering to God. But Isaac was the offering. When the time came to sacrifice Isaac to God, the Lord sent an angel to stop Abraham and provided a ram instead, caught by his horns in a thicket nearby.
I’m not a spiritual giant like Abraham. I’m not even Isaac or the donkey carrying the camping gear… And God has only asked me to use my hands and my mind in his service- not that I sacrifice my only child...
However, God did ask me to go out into the thicket without knowing what would come next. When I compare my task with Abraham’s I’m humbled, embarrassed that I’d ask questions and resist a simple request.
If all God wants is a blog from me, then surely I can do that much without all the answers. After all, God provided what Abraham needed in the thicket, and the stakes were much higher.
And when Abraham carried out God’s commands, the Lord blessed him for his obedience. If I could have even one percent of the blessing God gave Abraham I’d be a lucky woman indeed.
I don’t know what I’ll found out here, journeying through my own particular thicket. But if I know my God, I’ll find some beautiful and wondrous things.
And because he asked, I’ll share them with you.