What’s Your Isaac?
Do you ever read or hear God’s Word and brush over verses and stories you have memorized because you think you already know what they mean? This happened to me the other morning. I was praying—or rather, begging—God to deliver me from my years of sleepless nights. I wanted a cure. Or at least an answer.
Is it a chemical imbalance? Is it lingering depression or anxiety? Do I need to change my diet? Work out more? Pray more? See a therapist? Try a different prescription? What Lord? What?
And after my long-winded minutes of begging, God gave me this truth:
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33 ESV).
This is one of those verses I usually brush over. The lesson is simple. If I seek to be God’s kingdom (be morally motivated, be his hands and feet and Christ’s love, volunteer and pray and go to church, sponsor Compassion® children and give to the needy), then God will give me what I desire (like sleep, happiness, security, comfort, peace, and health).
Right?
Wrong.
I looked up a few biblical terms on Google. Spiritually, the word kingdom is a noun that means “the spiritual reign or authority of God.” To seek (verb) means “attempt to find, desire to obtain or achieve, to ask for, search for, and find something or someone.” According to these definitions, seeking God’s kingdom actually means seeking his authority in my life. It does not mean attempting to do more things to earn his favor or think he will answer my prayers because of my outstanding accomplishments. And we’re called to seek his authority first, above anything else.
With this new perspective fresh in my mind, I started to see all the things I’d been seeking first in place of God. Comfort, peace of mind, my next crafting project, health, a cure for my insomnia, happiness, less flab in my arms, a funny Netflix series, another home renovation endeavor, books on how to conquer anxiety. These are the areas I spend most of my time researching. God falls somewhere in the middle of them, and his authority falls way down on the list. The lingering question running through my mind was then, How do I let God’s authority rule my life?
Like the good Father he is, he placed me in a new Bible study a few days later, one where we dug into the narrative of Abraham offering up Isaac. Another story whose wonders I thought I had exhausted.
Wrong again.
This time, I made a connection between Abraham’s faith and my own search for the perfect night’s sleep. What I had failed to realize (or maybe had just forgotten) from the verses in Genesis was that God was testing Abraham and asking him to give up what he loved the most, what he was depending on for fulfillment. God promised that through Isaac, Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars (Gen. 15:5, 17:18). Obviously, Isaac was important to Abraham, and he was also the key ingredient for fulfilling God’s promise. But did I ever contemplate that Isaac could be what Abraham loved most? God was asking Abraham if he was willing to sacrifice what he loved most on earth to show that God’s reign was the driving force of Abraham’s faith.
The Holy Spirit awakened me to this new truth: my sleep has become my Isaac. It’s the most important aspect of my life right now and the thing I look to most in order to find fulfillment. Could it be that God is asking me to give it up for him? Could it be that the answer to my problem is that I need to seek less of it? Let it go? Is this my Isaac test? (Amazing how God can use a father-about-to-murder-his-son story to set me free from the area of my life where I so desperately want victory.)
Let’s be honest. It’s hard to hear our alarms in the morning and remember to think, “I desire to find, obtain, achieve, ask for, and search for God’s authority today.” Usually I’m desiring to find, obtain, achieve, and search for my sugary cup of coffee or thirty more minutes beneath my down comforter. But if God promises that “all these things will be added” to me if I do seek his authority first, then by golly, I’m going to try. And I’ll start by delighting and dwelling on his words.
For instance, in Psalm 62:5, it says “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence…” There are several parts to this verse that are challenging in this day and age, but the hardest for me is the silence. How do I silence myself enough to hear God alone? It’s when I push my dwelling thoughts away from anything other than his love and goodness. It’s here that our souls find satisfaction. God’s kingdom comes in the stillness of our thoughts when we stop dwelling on the wrongs and the seeking of other things and let his spirit open our eyes to the rights and to him alone. I have definitely been dwelling on some wrongs lately. No amount of deep breathing or candles can give me the lasting peace that God can.
What are some verses you have memorized that have lost their true meaning? Are there some you’ve exhausted that might need another angle or another definition researched? This experience was life-changing for me. Maybe it could be exactly what you need, too. Every word of the Bible is God-breathed. The words are active, satisfying, life-giving, and never failing. And when we dwell on them, they can give us the answers we’ve been seeking.
I bet most of us could come up with a similar list of worldly things we’ve been seeking this past year. I’ll also bet that these things do bring us delight, but only temporarily. Delight is a verb that means “to please someone greatly” or a noun that means “great pleasure.” As Christians, we are specifically called to “delight ourselves in the Lord” (Ps. 37:4). That can mean delighting in his authority over our lives.
So what are we delighting in and seeking today? What kingdom are we searching for?
has been happily married for just over two years and currently works in Grand Rapids, Michigan as a part-time nanny. She loves quiet mornings, decaf coffee, cats, crafting, and spending quality time with Jesus, family, and friends. She and her hubby are excited to be pursuing foster care or adoption with the hope of bringing love to kiddos in need. “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.”
Photograph © James Marcom, used with permission
