The God who raises the dead
Anyone who has walked the life of faith for a while will know that disappointment is a part of the journey. We all encounter situations where not only do we pray, but we call others to join us in fervent, desperate cries to God: together we plead with the Lord to intervene in critical situations of illness, urgent needs for provision, or frantic cries for reconciliation in unravelling relationships. To put it bluntly, there are times when it seems that our cries are ignored, cold shouldered by the God who either thinks that there is a better way, or chooses to turn a deaf ear to our shrill cries for help. And so we adjust our expectations, and after a while, we come to expect very little of God, for those who don’t expect much shall not be disappointed. Gradually we develop a diminished view of the power of God, concluding that a great day of power is to come in the future, but, in the meantime, little is likely to change. And so our vision of the mightiness of God fades, and he becomes a somewhat hapless and impotent spectator. As we consider the difficult Abraham/Isaac story, we must not allow its complexity to rob us of this key truth: God is the imminent, active, powerful God, able to raise the dead. Let’s not settle for a miniaturised version of God, because the vision of a great God creates potential disappointment. I’d rather have faith in an awesome God and navigate my way through seasons of disappointment than adjust my vision of him down, and never ask him to act at all.