Waypoints: Jehovah Jireh's Call To Worship

There was a time when I wanted to understand everything. This was probably due to a combination of being inquisitive, loving to learn and pride. On the positive side I just like to know things because it is fun to know how and why things are the way they are or work the way they work. On the negative side I wanted to know more than others simply so that I would win the “Biggest Brain Game”. This wasn’t any formal game but it made me feel smart and maybe even a little powerful. Can you relate at all?
 
All through my life I have wanted to know WHY, WHAT, WHERE and HOW. This makes the world an exciting, big and amazing place.
 

• Why do I feel cold and shiver when I have a fever?
• What does OK stand for?
• Where does wind originate?
• How can Monarch Butterflies do a multi-generational migration?

 
These are cool questions and it is fun to learn the answers just for the sake of exercising our minds and getting some insight. It is also through asking questions and listening that we get to know and appreciate the people that we are going through life with. We will learn how to love, support, challenge people as we know their story, what makes them tick and what they think about things. I have come to learn that one of the greatest gifts anyone can give me is for them to trust me with their story and their thoughts. What a gift it is to know and be known by each other.
 
This week’s theme for our message is about God revealing Himself to us in the birth of Isaac and the testing of Abraham [Genesis 21-22]. God wants us to know that He is the God who brings about what He says He will bring about. He also invites us to trust Him even when we don’t understand His timing or His ways. At this Waypoint we see humanity’s tendency to take matters into our own hands when God isn’t acting the way we think He should. Abraham and Sarah thought they needed to “help God out.” We see clearly that this decision caused a great deal of complication and stress for everyone involved.
 
This section of Scripture is one of God’s clearest proclamations that He will do things not only just as He said but often in a bigger and better way than we can imagine. For instance, in our passage this week we see the immediate fulfillment of His promise in the arrival of Isaac but as time marches on we see that He also gave us important prophetic knowledge regarding the coming Messiah. Here are a couple examples:
 

• The “long-awaited One” with be born miraculously. Isaac had parents that were 100 years-old and Jesus was born of a virgin.
  
• God would provide the needed sacrifice for Isaac of a ram [Gen. 22.13] and for us – Jesus, the Lamb of God [John 1.29].

 
So, I still like to know as much as I can! God wants me to know Him as He reveals Himself to me, but at the same time He wants me to live by faith in His timing and His ways.
 
Needing to grow in Knowledge and Faith,
 Pastor Nick