COME AS A CHILD LESSON 59 ABRAHAM'S LAST LECH LECHA

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

After they had traveled for two days Abraham saw the place that God was showing him from a distance. 

You have to wonder as Abraham plodded down the road if he was considering that again God was asking him to “go to a place that I will show you.”  Abraham had heard those words in his first test of God.  He heard them first when he left the land of his birth and trusted God to lead him into a new place.  That test had taken a different type of courage than what Abraham was experiencing now.  This time took all of the courage that Abraham possessed.   Now he was taking his only begotten son, Isaac to another place, a place that God would show him.  Both times required much faith; this last time the most faith. 

Did the repetition of the same words he had heard from God in the past reassure Abraham that he was still on track? 

The long walk gave Abraham lots of time to think; to be sure that he was doing the right thing.  After all he was going to do a very unreasonable thing in the eyes of most men for God in a place that he did not yet know of.  This type of act is not ever easy; this going to a place that you do not know to do something that you do not totally understand. 

Rabbi Label Lam once said:  “It’s woefully impossible to describe to someone a thing that is qualitatively beyond what they have ever experienced.”  This was a fair definition for what Abraham was being asked to do. Have you ever known or been through such a situation in your own life?  Have you ever had to do a hard thing that you knew was right but you could not explain why to anyone?  It is impossible to describe the experience to others as you are going through it.

There are such experiences that are positive.  You can describe a sunrise in language to someone, but until you take them out in the wee hours of the morning and hike to the top of a mountain cliff and build a fire and brew coffee and wait with them to see their first glimpse of the indescribable art of God; you cannot explain this experience to them properly with words that they will understand.

There are also such unexplainable life experiences that are not positive experiences.  You can try to explain the death of a child to someone, but until they have had to hold their own child cold, dead and lifeless in their own arms, they can never fully understand the agony of this loss.  There are no proper words.  Words do no justice to such experiences.  Perhaps that is why Abraham trudged along is silence for two whole days.  You can tell someone about something, but until they experience it for themselves, they would not ever even begin to understand it. 

Perhaps that is why God did not say to Abraham, go exactly here or go exactly there, but God said “go to the place where I will show you.” God knew Abraham must be allowed to concentrate solely on this experience itself and not be concerned with the logistics or all the unexplainable details of the experience.  So God chose the place and God set up the place before them.

God would show Abraham all he needed to know.  Abraham just had to go.  Lech Lecha.   Abraham trusted and set off on the journey.  At the end of the second day, Abraham looked up and saw the place that God had told him to go in the distance.

Do you ever get a far away glimpse of the place where God is telling you to go, but know it is still in the distance?  Have you ever experienced one of those Isaac moments when the task at hand that lies before you in this place looks too hard from where you are presently standing?

Do you stop and reconsider what you are doing? 

Do you reassure yourself now that you finally see evidence of the place God is pointing to in your life that the experience He has been speaking to you about might just be right on track?  

People of lesser faith lose heart here, and they turn; listening to the voices that are of the enemy which always pop up in these places saying that your imagination is working overtime, or you have over-analyzed the situation, or you have had too much to drink, or you have just been to too many movies, etc.  Not Abraham.  Abraham’s faith had matured to the place of simply obeying God no matter what.

When you reach the place where you see God’s will in the distance it is a time to wake up and take notice, to be reassured that you are on track, and a time to keep on walking toward God’s next experience.  Should you detour here, you might never get back on the right road.  God does not make detours; all detours are made by humans.  Keep looking straight ahead, even if the road looks too rocky or the mountain looks too high.  Do not lose site of the place that God is showing you. Walk on.

The Hebrews have a term in their language for these types of situations, it is called Lech Lecha.  It literally means “Go!”  The implied meaning is to go on in faith and you will know it when you see it.  “It” being the will of God.  This is how Abraham found the mountain where God told him to take Isaac.  He knew it when he saw it.  At that point he asked the other two men to wait while he and Isaac went up the rest of the way.