From The Webster’s Dictionary:
Sacrifice
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: the act of giving up something that you want to keep especially in order to get or do something else or to help someone
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: an act of killing a person or animal in a religious ceremony as an offering to please a god
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: a person or animal that is killed in a sacrifice
As a mom I feel like my whole life is full of making sacrifices – the loss of sleep from getting up each night, the last cookie that I was hoping to eat but instead put as a treat in my 4 year old’s lunch, all of that alone time where I could do whatever I pleased – gone to serve my kids.
I wouldn’t change any of it.
The sacrifices I make for my kids are worth every bit of it. I want them to feel special and loved.
We see sacrifice a lot in the Bible, but there are two stories in particular that I want to touch on today – both of these have to do with parents sacrificing.
Imagine being asked to sacrifice your own child – killing your own child, by your own hand. I can’t think of anything harder to do than that…yet when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Issac, he was ready to do just that. Check out the story in Genesis 22:1-18 Abraham and Issac set up the wood and fire for the burnt offering and then Abraham bound his son and laid him on the alter. God interrupted Abraham just as he was about to stab his son with his knife. God blessed Abraham because he was willing to kill his only son because God asked him to.
The next story I want to open up to you is the story of Hannah – read about her in 1 Samuel 1-2 Hannah was a woman that couldn’t have children it says that “the Lord had closed her womb” (1:5) she was so upset that she couldn’t have children that she wouldn’t eat. She cried out to God in distress, He heard her cry and she gave birth to a son, Samuel…then as soon as he was weaned she gave him up to the High priest, Eli, to raise in the House of the Lord. How hard would that have been? To have dreamed of having a baby for years and then finally once you have him and have nursed him, you give him up to the Lord and only get to see him once a year. (It says that she made him a new robe and brought it to him each year in 2:19.) That is what I call sacrifice to God.
These two parents had so much faith in God that even the most important thing in their life was willing to be sacrificed to Him.
How about you – would you be willing to sacrifice your child to God?
God probably won’t tell you to kill your own child, and He probably won’t tell you to leave your child at a church when he is just a toddler so the pastor can raise him but are you willing to sacrifice your own child?
Are you willing to sacrifice your dreams and desires for your child and surrender them to God so that He can use your child as He pleases?
Are you willing to let your child suffer if God wills it?
If you have given your own life over to God then you need to be ready to let go of your children and give them over to God as well.
I think back to when I was just graduating high school – I was just turning 18 and I wanted to go away for a year and work as a missionary in orphanages. When I think back now to what my parents must have went through – I was their only daughter of 5 kids and still so young. I left Canada and went to Zambia – a single white girl on a dangerous adventure. So much could have happened to me. My parents could have put a stop to my plans. They could have discouraged me from going and convinced me to stay in Canada and get an education before heading out on crazy adventures.
They encouraged me, they supported me, they prayed with me. They let me go.
Did they worry about me? I’m sure they did…but they didn’t let that worry of things that could happen to control them, they gave up their daughter to God’s plan.
Are you ready to release your kids to God? Are you ready to lay them down in sacrifice to Him and let Him take control?
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