Genesis 22:9-12 Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”
If the Lord should call you to give up or let go of those things that you love most and hold dearly, could you do it? What happens in the heart of a person who is ready, willing, and able to allow to Lord to take away, as well as add to their lives?
In our walk of faith, there comes a point when we will have to make a choice. Either to trust the Lord fully, or to faint and fail.
For the past year, we have found ourselves in the greatest opportunity for faith in our lives. Having come to Bantayan Island in December 2010 with a call to see what the Lord might have for us here, we began this walk of faith. Knowing that this commitment would require us to return to the U.S. and sell our home and other assets in order to have the necessary finances to return and minister on Bantayan, we had both great excitement and concern for how the Lord could make this all possible.
The economy in the U.S. being depressed and the sale of all homes at an all time low, to find a qualified buyer at a fair selling price, seemed a great enough obstacle for our faith. Discovering that within the first thirty days, the Lord had already prepared someone for the purchase of our home, we could see early on that this journey was securely in the Lord’s hands.
To our surprise, the first offer on our home in a slow economy, was close to our intended selling price. Our joy was soon dashed though, as the bank who would finance this buyer, lowered the amount that they were willing to carry, and the subsequent appraised value lowered the selling price even further. The final price to which we would have to sell our home of many years, was less than half of what we had hoped for, and far below the value that we could have realized a few years before.
It seemed to us that the Lord was impressing on us that we should not concern ourselves with the low price of the home, nor the fact that the net proceeds would be far less than what we would need to build a home on Bantayan and begin our ministry to the people there. We felt that the Lord told us to accept this small amount and “trust him” for the rest of the money we would need, once we arrived back in the Philippines.
As we began the plans for a house and church on Bantayan Island, the difficulties began to mount up daily. Completing the required blueprints, engineering those plans, paying the required fees and doing everything that was required of us to obtain a building permit, we were denied a building permit.
At the same time that we were returning to Bantayan to purchase land, an environmentalist lawyer was petitioning the Philippine government to restrict building on the island due to his concerns over encroachment beyond the 20 meter “water boundary” that existed on the island. For the past several decades, no one was allowed to build closer to the shore than 20 meters, to allow public access, a reasonable law in our estimation. Buildings that had been constructed closer than this 20 meter boundary were ordered demolished by the D.E.N.R. (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) in 2010.
Although the problem concerned just seven resorts that had encroached on the 20 meter water boundary, and no specific order was made to restrict building permits on Bantayan Island for private residences, the local zoning official on Bantayan, established his own “law”, and refused to issue any building permits for new construction. In our view, his action was both an unlawful and unjust action by a single individual, that had caused harm to property owners on the island for more than two years.
After much prayer and consideration, we moved forward without a building permit and began the construction of our home, with our very limited budget. To delay the construction of our home and church would have meant the delay of our ministry to the poor of the island, for which we had come to help. After repeated visits to the zoning supervisor, he assured us that the new law would be passed soon, and that we would be “okay to build, as long as we followed the engineered plans and were beyond the 20 meter boundary.”
After three months, and nearing the completion of our home and church, we received news that D.E.N.R. was expected to increase the water boundary from 20 meters to 40 meters along the shore. The reasoning behind this would be that Bantayan Island was originally set up as a “Wilderness Area”, with a 40 meter boundary that had never been enforced. The effects of increasing the water boundary to 40 meters, would be to rob land owners of 20 meters of their land, and require the destruction of their homes and businesses.
For more than 40 years, the government of the Philippines has recognized the 20 meter boundary and set up markers along the shore of Bantayan Island, from which property owners had built their homes and businesses. Bantayan has more than 129,00 residents on a seven by ten mile island, and has clearly not been a wilderness area for at least 20 years.
Faced with the destruction of our new home and church, should this law be put into place, we had a decision to make. Either complete the house and use all the money that we had, only to see it destroyed by the government, or complete the home, spend all we had, and trust the Lord to protect us and our home.
A third alternative came to mind; complete the house, use all our money, have the house destroyed, and accept this as being the Lord’s will for our life.
In 2001, a wildfire destroyed my home in Northern Arizona, taking everything I owned, and leaving my family homeless. I stood in the ashes of that home after it’s destruction and lifted my hand to the Lord and told Him: “Lord you gave this house to us, and now you have taken it away, Blessed Be Your Name…”
Are we willing to praise and thank the Lord even when He takes from us those things that we hold dear?
In 2006 my wife passed away suddenly. A few months later, my father. a few months after my father died, my mother passed away. Although the pain of these losses was almost beyond my ability to endure, the Lord sustained me and brought me back to a place of joy and contentment again. I still count His name Blessed today.
I do not know what will happen to our home and church here on Bantayan Island, but I do know that the Lord is Good, all of the time. If He decides that our home should be demolished, then that is His right to do so. All of the money, possessions and life that I have were given to me by Him. It is his right to give to me whatever He chooses and to take those things from me, as He wills. I have learned that whether He gives or He takes away, I will still praise Him and trust Him.
Abraham waited for nearly 100 years for a son, and that son finally came to him and Sarah when it was absolutely impossible that they could obtain a child by their own efforts. When Abraham’s love and devotion to Isaac was the strongest, he was faced with a command by God to offer Isaac to the Lord. By the time that Isaac was at the age when God required Abraham to present Isaac as a sacrifice, the love of Abraham for his son was great, and he was the highest and most treasured thing in his life. In order to know for himself who and what was most valuable to Abraham, God gave him the opportunity to test his heart. I am sure that there were a few sleepless nights, as Abraham contemplated what he should do with God’s request to offer Isaac as a sacrifice to the Lord. “How could God ask me to give up what I love more than anything?”
That was the question that Abraham had to answer in his heart, even as he walked up the hill with Isaac on the day that the sacrifice was required. Abraham raised the knife to plunge it into his son, and forever declared that his Love for the Lord was greater than anything else in his life.
Do any of us really think that Abraham understood why God would ask such a thing? Does the sacrifice an only son make sense to any of us? when God requires something of us, will we complete his request, no matter what it cost us?
I am learning that we must also come to the place of sacrificing our own Isaac. We must decide who and what is more dear to us than the Lord, to whom we claim to love more than anything else.
How did God feel when He was required to offer up His only Son for people that in large part, would never receive Him, nor thank Him for His act of love and sacrifice? Even so, He gave us what was most dear and valuable to Him. We should not forget that in both of these stories, there were the son’s who were being made the sacrifice. How did they feel being offered by their father? Was there not a great question in their hearts “why father?”
Whenever we are required to offer up something that we hold dear, there will be a question; “Why?” The answer will not always be apparent to us when the need to let something go is upon us. There is however, a question that has already been answered over 2,000 years ago. God does love us, and He has shown His love to us, clearly and without question, when He presented His only Son to die for us on the Cross.
We can let go of something dear and precious to us and feel the liberty and freedom of that release, knowing that in most cases God will not require us to suffer the loss of those things we hold precious and dear. The requirement was in the willingness to let go, not in the actual loss. In some cases though, it will be required that we lose in order to gain. For whatever the Lord takes from us now, He will replace with something far better and more satisfying than what He takes away.
The final outcome of our home here on Bantayan and our ministry to the people, are securely in the hands of the Lord. Only He knows what will happen. He has required us to trust Him and complete the building of the home and church, and leave the results to Him. It is certain that because of these very difficult days, we have had greater opportunities to meet key people on this island, and show our faith in adversity, than we would have had if there had been no crisis at all.
I pray that you will hold up under your own time of testing, and be found willing to raise the knife to offer up your own Isaac to the Lord.
James 1:2-4 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Rob Robinson
