The Ram in the Thicket is coming.

When Abraham took his son, Isaac (his promised son from God) to the top of the mountain to sacrifice him we saw the consummation of Abraham’s faith. For faith without action is disobedience and disbelief in the hope and truth of our God and who he says he is for us. We saw that Abraham’s love and fear of God was greater than the love of the things he was promised. So often we get to these places in our lives when we see or taste the promises God made in our lives, and we do not want to let them go. It could be finances, a spouse, our health, a home, a restoration of a relationship, a business, a ministry, or a breakthrough that we have been waiting on for a long time. Sometimes we start to see light at the end of the tunnel, but then we hear so clearly God prompting us to do things that feel impossible or to let go of the things we love. Yet, just as Abraham took his son, whom he loved dearly and waited so long for, he took him to the top of the mountain and as he went to kill him, the Lord stopped him. As the Lord stopped him from sacrificing his son and promise, a ram came out of the thicket of bushes. The Lord showed him that his sacrifice of his son was no longer necessary. Abraham was directed to sacrifice the ram, a more worthy sacrifice. It is in these moments of the impossible, that God takes the purity of obedience and sacrifices as a testimony of His lovingkindness and loyalty as the promise keeper.

Furthermore, it is the ram in the thicket that aids as the symbol of God’s generous selfless gift to us. The sacrifice of His son. It is above and beyond fulfilling the promises He has made to each of us. The ram in the thicket is a symbol of just how merciful, kind, and gracious our Lord is to us. A promise of life everlasting with Him through the sacrifice of His son. It is a sign that when life seems to be so difficult when it feels impossible to move forward, God in his infinitesimal goodness will always send a ram in the thicket. When you think you won’t be able to pay your bills, you lose a dear friend, or your relationship with someone whom you loved abruptly ends, or you fall sick; God in His goodness will bring healing and restoration in ways we did not expect. Although we travel up the mountain, bewildered to have to let something go again and again and again, God’s love prevails, and he comes to our rescue and aid when we least expect it. When you’re calling to do the Lord’s will is next to impossible, God sends help to us. The help in the form of a son and the Holy Spirit to direct our path. 

There is another story in the Bible that comes to mind when I think about the impossible made possible. It is the story in Luke 6 about the man with the withered hand. I am unsure if you have ever felt this way, but so often I have felt like the man with the withered hand in that there are parts of my life that feel dead and no matter what I did, ineffective in their purpose. I would say that we all are like the man with the withered hand. We walk the Earth, broken and ineffective in our purpose apart from God. Yet, through Jesus at his command, he heals the withered parts of me and you. It is in my obedience to him to open my hand one more time, that Jesus restores. As it so reads in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Though many naysayers or people are judging the withered parts of us, we can take comfort in knowing that with the sound of His voice, the withered parts of us can come to life and function in the ways that he has created them too.

And so, like Abraham and like the man with the withered hand we must abide in Him and die to our debilitating thoughts of hopelessness and life of sorrow. God will send the ram in the thicket to heal the broken things in you and me. He is the keeper of promises, and his loving kindness will never fail. Though we may be tried, he will be our truth. The Father shows us that apart from our obedience to Him we are dead and ineffective, yet with him we are effective as His eternal creation. Ultimately, this is why I among other living saints seek not to please man, but to please God. For it is separated from Him we cannot live in the fullness of what He has called us to be. My prayer for each one of us is that we might have the obedience of Abraham to lay our promises on the altar, that we might like the man with the withered hand, lay the broken parts of our lives on the alter so that God can bring back to life our promises. Amen.