Certainty in Uncertainty

 

 

 

Get thee out of thy country

And from thy kindred

And from thy father’s house

To a land I will show thee.

 

To leave all he knows

For that he does not know

Causes the kind of uncertainty

That will no doubt show.

 

God’s first demand

To the patriarch Abraham

Was to leave family, father’s house

And his native land.

 

But God is in command

And therein is certainty

Even to a destination unknown

Full of uncertainty.

 

To leave his province

Was Abram’s first test,

Leaving the known for the unknown

Must have been stress.

 

 

But the certainty he had

Was that God had spoken

And what He had promised him

Was better than a token.

 

Better than the present

Or even the past

For while these were certain,

They could not last.

 

So, leaving he did,

Following God’s command

And by faith he journeyed

To the promised land.

 

You can read Abram’s call

In Genesis the 12^th chapter

Followed by the sacrifice of Isaac

Ten chapters after.

 

The first test was hard

But the second was tougher,

Why not the son of the bond woman

That he had hired?

 

No mistaking the son,

Therein was the certainty

But the challenge, I dear say,

Was that of uncertainty.

 

Genesis 22:2

 

Take now thy son,

Thine only son Isaac,

Whom thou lovest,

And get thee into the land of Moriah;

And offer him there for a burnt offering

 Upon one of the mountains

Which I will tell thee of.

 

First to a land unknown

Then to a mountain range,

To sacrifice his only son, he loved,

Seemed very strange.

 

 

But Abraham was certain

That God had spoken

And to perform this strange request

He obediently hastened.

 

Take now thy son,

Why, that could be Ishmael,

But God requires the very best;

The rest we could sell.

 

Thine only son-

“But God, I have two sons.”

Yes, but only one by the name Isaac;

From this he could not run.

 

Thine only son Isaac,

Whom thou lovest,

That God only takes the very best

Was Abraham’s sternest test.

 

Genesis 22 and verse 2

Speaks to a conversation,

How Abraham wanted to opt out

But such was not an option.

 

 

In the book of James, we read,

God temps no man

But in the book of beginnings

God did tempt Abraham.

 

The uncertainty is

When we don’t understand,

But the certainty that is reassuring

Is that God holds our hand.

 

Stewart Russell © October 22, 2024