Divine Plagiarism

I’m sure Abraham had some theory on how God was going to keep His promise when he set out toward the mountain with his son. I mean, you have a bunch of impossible variables all put together. You have the child of the promise, the son through whom God will make a great nation. You have an order to take that son up to a mountain to his death. You have no explanation at all, only instructions. Father Abraham is hardly a Soren Kirkegaard. I’m sure he had some scheme about how it would all work out.

God knew Abram’s heart. He was a leader, he understood command and control. That gift was equal parts strength and weakness. The same man that led a household of hundreds through a wasteland had schemed himself out of Pharaoh’s hands and into fathering Ishmael. As a patriarch and a military commander, he doubtless had some understanding of outcomes and courses of action. The child of promise was too important for all of that. There was no scheme that would bring about the promised miracle, no human hands would be credited with this thing God had wrought. None were. Abram and Sarah conceived a child to a barren womb. But we forget so quickly.

Once God answers a prayer, the temptation is to believe that the time for faith ended with that answer. ‘God, thanks for the son, but we’ve got it from here.’ We forget that having the thing takes at least as much faith as getting the thing. They waited expectantly on God to answer their prayer, keeping their hands open and raised. When He gave a son into their hands, they doubtless wanted to close their hands around him. This is why Abraham had to take Isaac to the mountain. Learning a faith of asking, he now had to learn the faith of having. This is the ability to have a gift without it having you; the strength to hold all the things you love in open hands before God.

So, about a month ago, I got two friends back. I considered it a Christmas present. In some ways, it was an answer to a prayer. Things had started to wrong between us. Felt like God had been leading me away from them. I heard from Him, ‘you know, you’re going to have to let them go.’ I didn’t understand at the time. Maybe I didn’t want to. I considered them deep friends, and I didn‘t want to let them go. I tried to hold on, and the relationship started to be more and more painful. ‘Compliant-Nonresponsive’ all over again. I’m not going to describe the details. Suffice it to say that I did end up letting them go four months ago. I felt like God forced my hand, but that it was something that had to be done. So when I heard back from them recently, I considered it a gift from Him. As if He had given me my friends back.

But even in this miracle, there must be a point where you take the relationship to the mountain. And I am there now. So be it. They are His first. May the relationship between us take whatever form He desires. I was absent in many ways before; I will be present now. This means that I stand up for myself, that I speak in all the flavors of love (not just the nice ones,) and that I learn to be cognizant of my proper place in their lives, and their proper place in mine. This means that boundaries must be drawn. This may not go well, I know. It is hard for people who have not had boundaries to draw and maintain effective ones. It is difficult for people who have not expressed hurt to each other to learn how to do so respectfully. But this is important. I will not risk the changes God has wrought in my heart for old times’ sake. So perhaps we figure out a ‘new wineskins’ friendship. I earnestly desire that. But however this ends, I know that I am placing them into God’s hands, certainly more than ever before. And however it turns out, I will love them.

In order to have something, you must be willing to give it up. To hold on too tight is to strangle the life from the gift. Love is this way. To love a friend, you must not love them so much that you will never risk the friendship. To do so is to ensure the death of the friendship, for there will be things that need to be talked about which will bring with them that risk. I recall a movie where a general remarks on the paradox of command. ‘A general must love the army, they must love their men. But at the same time, they must be willing to order the death of the thing that he loves. He must be willing to order an attack. If he does not, more of his men will die, and they will have died for nothing.’ This is true with friendship and romantic love, too. You must be willing to risk the relationship in order to save the relationship. The difference between work and fighting is the element of risk. Anything good on this side of the fall must be fought for.

There is an ordering of things. God must come first. If He does not, than all other things are doomed to failure. Perhaps this is why God engineered risk into love. If we only had to all the things in the right order, we would think that love was our own creation. Without risk, there is no surrender, and without surrender, there is no love. The first surrender must be to God. So there is no love without risk. Just ask Jesus. He knows this better than any of us could.