trust and faith

[pennyjane]

i just posted in another place and felt like i wanted to get deeper into the thing about trust and faith then might be appropriate in that forum..i hope it's more appropriate here.

dilemna's are what i'm thinking of.  the story of abraham and isaac immediately comes to mind when that comes up.  one has to wonder just how much faith is does take to face what seems an impossible dilemna and submit to faith.

God promised abraham that his seed would bear the fruit of thousands of decendants and would populate many nations.  God said this seed was to be planted in sarai and would sprout from her firstborn, isaac.  God then, some twenty five years later and before isaac had married told abraham to lay isaac out on an alter and offer him as a human sacrifice.

so by what power did abraham, a man who'd argued and dickered with God in the past, just keep his mouth shut and procede with his son up the mountain, strap him down and pick up the knife?  how could he have possibly reconciled God's earlier promise with this command?

ok, this story is pregnant with all orders of christian thought...so much of our dogma comes from different compartments of this one story.  one might see a perspective that christian thought was born right there in abraham's unwillingness to argue this plan with God.  eventhough for most of us i think it would be impossible to reconcile, to decide what's real and what isn't.  if abraham sacrificed the very vehicle of the promise, how could he then believe that the promise was real, how could he trust God's Word?  these questions aren't explicitly asked or answered in scripture.  i have one comforting possibility...just an idea of my own, not that of any theologian or great thinker...just one person with little training...so please don't get angry with me if you think i'm way off base...it's just one possibility from just one perspective.

what if the idea of resurrection was born right then and there?  what if abraham was given the idea that the sacrifice of his son, who he loved with all his heart...the one son of his beloved sarah...might result in resurrection in order to fullfill the promise?  could that be how he reconciled the promise and the command?

what if even God had first intended this to be the case.  although scripture said that this was a test of abraham's faithfulness, what if God even had this idea at the time...the sacrifice of the only beloved son...and just pulled the plug on this one...perhaps realizing that the sacrifice of an imperfect human wouldn't be enough to redeem the whole world of sin?  what if God thought just at that time that it was going to take a much greater loved son then that of his friend, abraham...that, alas...it would take His own son to bring redemption to us?

this is just idle conjecture, not an idea i'll defend...but i would discuss it with an eye on learning and understanding.  it is intended to offend no one.

Posted on: October 08, 2008, 10:34:16 amok....further conjecture.  what if resurrection never occured to abraham?  what if abraham had just come far enough along in his relationship with God that he realized how fruitless was dickering or arguing one's point?  it could be that his experience with arguing over sadom and other such episodes had finally convinced him that he could make every point, get all of God's concessions and it was still going to end up as God said it was in the first place.  maybe he'd just reached a saturation point and decided to just do it, whatever it is...just go ahead and do and get it out of the way.  whatever he thought or wanted was of no consequence, God was not to be understood, just obeyed.

so then, what does this say of abraham, is he now just a sheep...being led around and sheparded from place to place as if he were no more then one of a herd?  does the sheep know why the herder takes him from place to place?  does he say to himself, "there is water over that hill now, and a good pasture so i'm glad to go?"  does he just stay in line and go where he's told...neither trusting nor distrusing the herder, just going along with the program?

good question.  men are so much more then sheep.  though sometimes we feel utterly meaningless and nothing more then a tiny speck of nothingness when we touch awareness of God's omnipitence; sometimes we feel like it would be nice to just let God herd us around...never do anything wrong...never have eaten of the forbidden tree.  sometimes we wish God would speak to us as clearly and concisely as He did to abraham.  how many of us wouldn't just up and do it if God just came right out and said, "pj, pick up your stuff and move to louisville, i have a plan for you."

how come God was so clear, it seems, back in the day...while now we just never seem sure of where He's leading us...if it's His will or our own?  was it just nothing more then trust that abraham had?  was it just blind faith that led him up the mountain?  when asked where he was going why did he answer, "we're going up the mountain to pray...we...WE...will be back?"  why we?  why not "i'll be back."  he knew he was going up there to kill isaac didn't he?  was he being deceptive with them, did he think one of his slaves might try to stop him if they knew the truth?  or did he just shrug his shoulders and know that the promise would be fullfilled one way or another and he just didn't have to stuff to keep trying to figure things out for himself anymore when it came to God?  you can lead a horse to water, and heck, if he's thirsty he'll drink.

i wonder what it takes in one of us when something so profound as being of a gender that doesn't add up happens to us to make a decision and move forward with it.  how do we know that we are acting as God wants us to or if we are submitting to narcissism and idolatry?  does it take faith?  does it take courage?  why can't we just say, "ok, it's out of whack...but...so are a lot of things...i'll just make the best of it and move on?"  someone just asked in another forum, "what's gender without society?"  is gender just what we express?  is our gender how we act and how we present...if there were no other people on earth would i be of no gender?  i think these are legitimate questions to ask ourselves.  and i think it takes a spark of something we can't find in sheep to make any sense of it all.  if gender expression is only valid in a societal setting, would i care if my hair were nice if there was no one to see it?  how about my breasts...would i care rather i had them or not?  if no one is ever going to see between my legs, do i care if i have a vagina or a penis?  what makes me care, and what makes me think God cares?

validation we all need.  we need external validation and we need internal validation both.  passing is about external validation, caring about your breasts is internal validation.  so, which is validation from God?  how does he validate us?  could it just simply be trust?  can we hear and trust that the Holy Spirit is talking to us just as clearly as God spoke to abraham?  does it make any more sense for abraham to climb up that mountain telling them "we'll be back" then it does for pennyjane hanson to climb up that mountain and have them say, "she'll be back?"

just another perspective, not intended to impune the perspective of any other.  not to be defended.

[tekla]

Indeed it is a strange little tale.  One that stands out as a particular notion of god, in what is a very unique book - the Hebrew Bible.  Man had had gods, arbitrary and capricious, aplenty before this, the Greeks had a slew of them, but to combine, as the Jews did, all of the gods into a single being (which Christianity would deconstruct back into three) made for some pretty scary moments in the Old Testament for sure.  Hard pressed between this story and The Flood (though god runs over Job like USC playing a mediocre high school team) for the nastiest god story in the world, depending on if you think mass extinction is worst than putting Abe in that situation. 

Though I have trouble with this story is pregnant with all orders of christian thought on one level - that being that a) the story is Jewish in origin and works in a strict Old Testament notion of G*d, and, that what ought to be the stories full of Christian thought are those that Christ told - though that whole, 'give your money to the poor' stuff has always been a hard sell.  Its always been much easier to scare people with god then blow them over with love.  Sad.  But true.  And if this don't scare you, nothing will.

And, poor old Abe.  What's he going to do?  For one of the first writers extant - other than The Epic of Gilgamesh - that person sure knew how to grip an audience from the get-go.  God, or your kid - you choose.  How could one ever choose such a thing, Abe in particular who had trouble coming up with one kid as it was (with his wife, Sara, his 'concubine,' slave, harlot, backdoor girl, or whatever Hagar was had no such problems)?  And the story thus focuses  - not on G*d, not on the debate ranging in the heavens as to how nice is doing this to Abe in the first place - but on Abe's decision to go forward.

And, it has proven to be good fodder for thought, Søren Kierkegaard really began a whole strain in modern thinking, if not more than one, with his meditation on Abraham and Issac, Fear and Trembling, and Sartre would use it as his proof of absolute free will, because Abe never has to do as god says, its always his choice. 

For the Jews, who have been telling this story a lot longer than the Christians have been, the message is twofold.  First, its the deal.  The contract.  The entire reason they are the 'chosen people of god' is in that story, and pretty much that story alone.  Second, it says that the human part of the deal in being the 'chosen people' was that they had to believe.  They have to choose, as Sartre would have it, and in that choosing faith makes god real.  That to be the 'chosen people' you have to choose god in exchange, that you might be born Jewish on one level, but you choose to Be Jewish on a very different level.

[pennyjane]

hmmmm.....occurrs to me...maybe abraham learned a lesson we all keep teaching ourselves over and over again...the trick is not to get God on our side, but to get ourselves on His side.  ok, i'm gonna go pound that into my head awhile....maybe i can get it to stick around all day today.

[Alicia Marie]

Pennyjane,
  The Bible says Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. He fully beieved that since God promised he would raise Isaac back up.
  I personally see Abraham's obedience as a faith that makes me ashamed when I question my faith. After all, he was willing to destroy the very vessel of salvation the Lord promised. Or, as written against hope he believed in hope.
  When I see Abraham bartering with God about Sodom I see a type and shadow of Jesus as the one mediator between God and man. The very High Priest that alone is in the presence of God to mediate on our behalf due to the right given by being the only Lamb of sacrifice acceptable.
  Many of God's servants were tested in ways that may appear to go against the word of God. Remember how Paul wrote that some thought of Christians as though they walked after the flesh, or in other words, being lost.
  Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years. I imagine that went over pretty good with the religious folk of the day.
  Many people today live lives that are rather different from the mainstream but it is Jesus that has the right to say who is unclean or common and not man. That includes the transgender people as far as I am concerned.
  Straight people cannot fulfill the law by their own lifestyle. Neither can transsexuals.
  The Bible says love is the fulfilling of the law and it is faith that pleases God. Faith in the sacrifice of Jesus and faith in his ability to give eternal life to those whom truly love him.
  Bickering over race, sex, orientation, doctrines, denominations and works of the law are all profitless. Faith in Jesus is what will profit. He was the mercy God gave us and in him lies all mercy and wrath. It's not in our place to say who is saved and who is not.
  Abraham gave one of the greatest sacrifices in obedience to prove his fear, love and faith. God stopped him from fulfilling the task that was asked of him.
  But, when God gave a sacrifice he didn't stop it.
  And in that I personally rejoice although it saddens me in what the Lord went through for all that would call upon his name.
  Alicia 

[pennyjane]

hi alicia...hmmmmmm.....one of those "Jesus christians".  good for you!  i see the relationship pretty much the same.  it's another level of the story of abraham....in all the times he dickered and bartered with God it seems it was always on behalf of others.  for himself, he just silently submitted.  it's all very gooey in there, all sorts of layers and examples...but sooooo beautiful and so uplifting.

as unfortunate as it may seem to some of us, i think you are right, faith is a product of grace, God's grace and not ours.  as badly as we might want to we cannot dispense that grace from ourselves.  that's why i choose never to argue scripture with non-believers.  it's as impossible for us to see it from their perspective as it is for them to see it from ours.  the meanings are just worlds apart.  we keep hearing and it keeps falling on deaf ears, but as "Jesus christians" we must just keep saying it over and over...Jesus is love, that's His absolute...all other teachings in scripture must be taken in that context.  so, keep saying it and keep believing it...and may He bless you with...