Who Is Your Isaac?
Drawn from the teaching of Professor Gary S. Maxey · 2 min read
God asked Abraham for the one thing he loved most. Professor Gary Maxey uses the story to describe the first area in which the Holy Spirit calls believers to surrender: human ties.
The command
In his book on the Highway of Holiness, Professor Maxey takes Luke 14:26. Jesus says that anyone who comes to him and does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, cannot be his disciple. Professor Maxey reads this as a call to a higher love and a primary allegiance. God asks believers to place every human tie into his hands.
Abraham's road
Professor Maxey asks us to imagine the three-day journey. Isaac was the son of promise, awaited over decades. God said, give him up. Professor Maxey points out that God was not acting like the cruel gods of the pagans. He wanted Abraham's first affection. Abraham rose early, saddled his donkey and went (Genesis 22).
He cites David Livingstone, who gave up long years with his children and eventually his wife to do the work God had given him. Professor Maxey says he finds no evidence that Livingstone did not love them. In his words, Livingstone was sold out to a higher priority.
The deepest part of his own account
Professor Maxey describes a night when he was eighteen. He had fallen in love with a godly young woman. When God showed him that he was on the Highway but did not yet have a clean heart or the fullness of the Spirit, God asked him to end the relationship. He did.
Then came the harder question. Would he live the rest of his life unmarried if God asked it? He says he broke into a cold sweat. After agony he said yes. Later, he writes, God led him to marry that same woman.
He does not make this a rule. He says each of us is different. The pattern is that God asks us to hold our closest ties with an open hand.
A caution
Do not turn this into permission to neglect your family. Professor Maxey describes surrender of the heart, and not abandonment of duty.
Your question
Who or what do you hold tightest? A child, a spouse, a friend, a clan, a dream for someone you love? Say it to God aloud. Then tell him it belongs to him.
Drawn from the teaching of Professor Gary S. Maxey.
