Today is the day my sweet boy would be 4 years old. So hard to believe that it has been 4 years. So much has changed. I am so thankful that he came into our lives. I still miss him everyday. Yes the daily life is easier, but time doesn't really change much. It is January again, the month I hate more than any other month. Every child we lost was connected to January. January 4th 2014, we lost Luke. January 9th was the due date of our first miscarriage before Eli. January 16th is Eli's birthday, and January 23rd he died. It still hurts that it's his birthday and he's not here. I can't help but imagine if he was here and we had 3, or 4 if Luke was here too, boys running around our house. Richie and I were talking and imagining what it would be like if we had 6, 4, 2 and 7 months, boys. Wow how our lives would be different. I have to admit that I think I have always pictured my family more like that. With 4 kids and all the craziness that brings. I am so incredibly blessed and happy with the 2 we have. There is so much love in our home it's hard to imagine it being anymore full. However I have to say the picture of our family is different. So many expectations, so many dreams that are gone. That brings me to a devotion that I have been writing for my leaders group at a Bible Study I teach at. So if you are reading this and you are in that Bible study, spoiler alert, I will be giving this devotion, or similar, or Tuesday. Also it's a little lengthy, so I apologize, but I hope you think it's worth the time.
When I was thinking about what to write my devotion on I was reminded of a speaker that I heard at a Kids Ministry Conference. Angie Smith is my favorite writer and speaker and she was at the conference the first time I went. If you don't know her story, she is worth looking into. So I am not going to claim that all these ideas are mine. They came from her and she is an amazing writer and knows a ton about scripture. She spoke that day about Abraham and Isaac. I couldn't get this story out of my mind when I was preparing for my devotion.
Abraham was a very faithful man. God had promised him that he would make a great nation from Abraham's descendants. Now, if you don't know the whole story, Abraham screws up along the way. As we all do sometimes, he wanted to rush God's plan, and help Him out a little. That didn't go so well. Fast forward to when God fulfills his promise and Abraham and Sarah have Isaac, in their very old age. They got what they were promised, a son. Then God says, I want you to take your son, whom you love, and sacrifice him as a burnt offering to me. There are many parallels in this story to Jesus, but I will leave that for you study more yourself; but one of them was this wording is the same as used in John 3:16. This was also the first time the word love was used in Scripture. So Abraham gets up early and sets off to do what God has asked him to do. He doesn't delay, he doesn't try to talk God out of it, he doesn't even tell Sarah (probably because she would try to talk him out of it). He just gets up and does it. He doesn't even know where to go. God just says go and I will show you the place. Abraham looked up and saw the place from far away. The word looked up there in Hebrew was ra'ah. It means to look or to see, or to provide. Keep that in mind as we will see that word again in this passage. So they set out and wander for 3 days before God says, ok this is the place. Before they go to fulfill his task, they go to worship. This is the first time the word worship is used in Scripture. This could be a lesson all on it's own, but can you imagine the horrible agony Abraham is in. He knows what he's going to have to do. He has been wandering with Isaac for 3 days thinking about it. But he stops to worship. God is good. Even in the terrible times, He deserves our praise.
After that he tells the servants to wait behind, and he and Isaac set off on their own. He tells them we will be back. He still had faith in God's promise. Isaac was probably a teenager, and Abraham was very old. So Isaac was there willingly. Isaac was probably starting to wonder what was going on as he notices something is missing. He says " My Father...Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?". Abraham answers simply "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son." Here we see the word ra'ah again, when Abraham says God will provide the lamb.
Abraham builds the altar, and ties Isaac up and places him on it. Can you imagine the pain he was feeling as he tied up his own son and placed him there? He raises his knife to kill Isaac and just as he is about to do it, and angel of the Lord says STOP! Based on Hebrews 11:19 I think Abraham thought he was going to have to kill Isaac, but he thought God would raise him from the dead. He remembered God's promise, but I think he really thought he would have to kill Isaac first. So Abraham looked up, and there caught in a thicket was a ram for sacrifice. The word looked up there, ra'ah. So Abraham offered it as a sacrifice and God asks him what he will name that place. He names it The Lord will provide. There is the same word, ra'ah again. I think the 2 meanings of that word had huge significance here. Not only did God provide, He saw him. He saw Abraham's pain, and He sees ours.
What I never noticed about this story, until I heard Angie Smith speak was this. Abraham said God will provide the lamb. But what he got was the ram. God has made the same promise to us. Jesus is the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. God fulfilled his promise we got Jesus. He is going to come back one day and set this awful world right. He made a way for us to be with Him forever in Heaven. He saved my sons, even though not the way I wanted. I wanted the ram. I wanted God to provide a way for them to be saved the way I saw fit. I wanted the ram, but I was never promised the ram. I was promised the lamb and I got Him. Because of His sacrifice my sons are waiting for me in Heaven. We will one day reunite and we will be that family of 7! Not in the crazy worldly family of 7 sense, but in a way that we will worship God forever in eternity together. So today on my Eli's 4th birthday I want to remind you that on the days when you don't get what you expected, you don't get the ram, remember that you got the Lamb. You have Jesus, and He will be back one day to make it all right. Remember He sees you. He sees your pain. He sees your struggle. He loves you.
Happy belated first Heavenly birthday to Luke, happy 4th Heavenly Birthday sweet Eli. We miss you and we love you. You have changed us. You have changed the lives of so many people. I hope to keep honoring you in my life here, and I can't wait for the day when we are all together again. What a great day that will be!
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