Like Father, Like Son
Abraham, Isaac, you, and I
Out of every book of the Bible, the book of Genesis always calls me back home. It is almost as though God averts my eyes from the obvious places where He is present in the story of humanity, and brings me back to the mundane, dirty, lowly story of each and every one of us.
Whenever I was reading Genesis this time through, I noticed something that up until now had been hiding just beneath the surface of the story. Indeed, it’s easy to miss if you are reading Genesis as a boring history book rather than a story about you.
I got to Genesis 21:22-34 and had this weird feeling as though I had remembered this story before. I couldn’t figure out how or why, but I felt like it seemed familiar. I began flipping through the pages in my Bible and eventually I got to Genesis 26:26-34. There it was!
When Isaac entered the land of the Philisitines, just like his father had done many years prior, he was afraid; death itself is what looked him square in the eyes. Wanting to avoid death, he, just like Abraham, tells the Philisitines that his wife is actually his sister.
Now I’m not sure why both of them used that same excuse, but I do think it is interesting to see how Isaac must have remembered hearing His father lie to them as a child. Perhaps he remembered exactly what his father did, and when God called him and his family out into the desert amidst a famine, he figured he’d try the same thing—because why not?
There are many things that I do simply because I have seen my dad do them. When I get frustrated, I rub my eyes, as if my non-verbal communication is less abrasive than my verbal communication. I tend to have similar mannerisms, and I even think that my love for people and my desire to help and inspire people come from my dad. Many of the things I have done and decisions I have made in life are probably a direct result of me trying to be like my father, going off of his example—sometimes I fail.
The beauty of the story for you and for I is that if you look into both stories of Abraham and Isaac, you’ll see how even though they both tried to lie to save themselves, placing others in danger—including their wives—God continually intercedes on their behalf and protected them and their loved ones from impending doom. He even protected those that He didn’t call to go on a grand journey into the wilderness—He appears to Abimelech in a dream and keeps him from sleeping with Sarah.
Our God loves us so much that He allows us to follow the steps of our worldly fathers, all while trying to show us that if we will just listen to our Heavenly Father, He will always keep us safe. Sometimes our worldly fathers do things in worldly ways, even following God out of faith. God continually keeps us safe in spite of that.
As sort of an addendum, if you keep reading in both of those stories you’ll see how God meets them at the well, and then blessings are given to those whom He called. We aren’t Isaac or Jacob, but we too have been called to dip our hands down into the Living Water, and to finally taste the Truth that has been given to us. From the beginning, new life has always emerged out of the water.
Jesus is sitting at the well, waiting for you, probably with a fresh meal like the fish He cooked for His disciples many times. He not only wants you to eat what He has given you, He wants you to have the faith to walk atop the water, where you no longer sink below the waves. Instead you stand victorious over death.
He loves you.