Trusting God When It Doesn’t Make Sense
Continuing in our series The Famous Ones, we return to the life of Abraham. Abraham is a man who spent his life trusting God when it didn’t make sense. Throughout his journey, we see a pattern of faith being tested in difficult seasons.
There are moments in life where it feels like everything has been stripped away, and all we have left is our faith. It is easy to say we trust God when things are going well. However, the real test comes when God asks us to trust Him in ways we don’t understand.
In Genesis 22, we see one of the most challenging moments in Abraham’s life. This story forces us to ask a deeper question: does God only have our attention, or does He truly have our hearts?
When God Asks for What Matters Most
When we catch up with Abraham in Genesis 22, Abraham and Sarah’s son Isaac has grown up in their household and is now a young man. After waiting for the promise of offspring for many years, Abraham is now enjoying the blessing from God. However, in the opening of this chapter, God tells Abraham to take his son Isaac, his promised son, and offer him as a sacrifice on the mountain.
It’s easy to say we trust God until it costs us something.
We can only imagine how Abraham might have struggled with obeying God. We often say, “God, You can have everything”. But when God asks for something we love, the meaning of everything might start to change. We struggle to surrender what we hold dear, trusting that God has good in store for us
It is easy to surrender what we do not care about., but it is much harder to surrender what matters most to us. This is where faith is tested.
Trusting God When It Doesn’t Make Sense
From a human perspective, this command made no sense. Why must Abraham sacrifice Isaac? Isaac was the fulfillment of God’s promise. God promised to number Abraham’s offspring more than the stars in the sky. By sacrificing Isaac, the promise doesn’t seem like it would be fulfilled, yet Abraham chose to trust God anyway.
Faith is revealed through obedience
Abraham’s response shows us that real faith is not just belief, it is action.
Earlier in his life, Abraham made decisions out of fear. We see this when Abraham went to Egypt and asked Sarah to lie and say she was his sister instead of his wife, fearing he would be killed. But now we see growth. We see a man who trusts God even when the situation does not make sense.
Trusting God when it doesn’t make sense means believing that God is still good, even when we don’t understand His plan. It is believing that God wants good for us, and what he asks of us is for our benefit.
Surrender Reveals the Depth of Our Faith
Abraham’s willingness to obey reveals something powerful about faith: faith runs as deep as our surrender. What we are willing to surrender shows how much we trust God’s will for our lives. The less we try to control and the more we surrender, the more we are putting our lives into God’s hands.
Abraham is known for his faith because he was willing to give everything, even the son he longed for for many years. This kind of faith is not surface-level, it is deep and life-changing. When God truly has our hearts, that is when real transformation begins.
God Will Always Provide
For several days, Abraham journeyed with his son Isaac to the mountain where God called them. Together, they ascended the mountain to the spot where Isaac would be bound to the wood he carried and prepared as a sacrifice for the Lord. However, at the last moment, God stops Abraham and provides a ram as a substitute.
God reveals Himself as our provider
This is where we see God as Jehovah Jireh — the Lord who Provides. If something is truly God’s plan, then He will provide everything needed for it to succeed. He provides direction, resources, and what we need at the right time. We can trust that God will never call us to something without also providing for it.
Testing Comes Before Blessing
It might be asked “why would God have Abraham sacrifice his son if he is the promised child? Why would God call Abraham to kill off his legacy, his inheritance?”. It is here we can say that God was testing Abraham’s heart to see if he trusted in the promise, or the Promise Giver. It was a test to see if Abraham trusted in God more, or if he loved the things of this world more than the Lord. From there, God can then prepare Abraham for the next step in the promise.
Testing is preparation, not punishment
Throughout scripture, we can see examples of where testing is preparation and not punishment for the people who were called by God.
- David faced battles before becoming king
- Joseph faced hardship before becoming a leader over Egypt
- Daniel faced the lions’ den before favor with the king
If we are in a season where our faith is being tested, it does not mean God has left us. It means He is preparing us for the next place he wants to take us in life. It means He is preparing us to handle bigger challenges and bigger blessings.
The Gospel Connection: Isaac and Jesus
Besides teaching us to surrender even when it doesn’t make sense, this story points forward to something even greater.
The knife stopped for Isaac, but not for Jesus
Before God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son, Abraham had made the journey to the mountain, had Isaac carry the wood, laid Issac on the wood and on the altar, and was ready with the knife to sacrifice Isaac.
When we look at the Gospels and the story of Jesus, the parallels are powerful. We see God the Father offering his only Son for the world. We see Jesus the Son of God carrying wood of the cross up a hill to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. Just like Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, so God was willing to sacrifice His Son.
Here is the key difference though: Isaac was spared. Jesus was not.
Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice for us. What Abraham was asked to do, God actually did. Jesus died so that many could become the sons and daughters of God. This shows that as much as God asks us trust Him with what we love most, He is willing to do the same for us.
This is the Gospel: God gave His only Son so that we could have life, and we can find hope in Jesus.
What Is God Asking You to Trust Him With?
This story leads us to a personal question: what are we holding onto that God is asking us to release? There may be something in our lives that God is asking us to trust Him with:
- control
- a relationship
- a future plan
- something we deeply value
Sometimes the thing we hold onto the tightest becomes the very thing God is asking us to surrender. Like Abraham, when we trust Him with it, we begin to experience more of what He has for us.
Conclusion
The story of Abraham and Isaac reminds us what it truly means to trust God when it doesn’t make sense. Real faith is not just believing, it is surrendering and obeying, even when we do not understand.
God is not asking us to give things up to harm us, but to lead us into something greater. When we trust Him fully, we begin to see His provision, His purpose, and His plan unfold in our lives.
This message is part of The Famous Ones series, where we explore real people in the Bible and learn how God works through their faith, their struggles, and their obedience. Each story reminds us that God is still working today, and when we trust Him completely, we can move forward with confidence—knowing He will provide every step of the way.