GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS
Sunrise
DRAPER’S PAPER ROUTE
GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS
by Adam Carroll Draper
“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty, early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.”
I love that song. There is something special about being alone with God in the morning, still and at rest after a night of dreams and encounter. On weekends, I like to get up early and spend half the day just easing in the presence of the Lord. I generally find that the hours have just rolled and I was not aware of time. When I do not start my day this way for a least an hour or so, things never seem to flow, or I don’t let things go.
Sometimes, even sleep and soaking can’t get me to let things go. I can wake to a flood of thoughts about what is coming. Most people deal with stress of one degree or another, but maybe we should not let the enemy off so easily by accepting that as normal. Stress (particularly panic) is an attack. It is one of those we-wrestle-not-with-flesh-and-blood moments. It is spiritual. It’s how the enemy is empowered. Worry is worship – and not worship of God.
On a morning that was particularly full of noise not too long ago, I did what I usually do, I rebuked Satan and started focusing on God’s goodness. (If I am still in bed, I don’t praise and sing out loud – to avoid the forthcoming percussive response from Stefanie). I don’t remember exactly what was on my nerves, but it was intense enough that I could not seem to get past the noise to let it roll off me. That is not normal at this point, so I switched to guns (not literally – for you literalists). I started recounting God’s goodness and faithfulness from Genesis 1:1 and moved forward from there. I figured, if I am going to be awake, I will just start in the beginning and Satan will get tired and leave me alone eventually. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Kenneth Hagin used to say that meant the devil will “run as if in terror.”
When I got to Abraham, something struck me (not like a bus or a rock), a question I had never deeply contemplated before. Why was Abraham the father of our faith? (See Romans 4: 1-12). I mean, Noah was faithful. What about Enoch? This was one of those moments when I knew the Holy Spirit (in Hebrew, Ruach HaKodesh) was leading me into some profound truth. I thought, “OK this is totally worth being awake for. Look what you did, Satan!” I might have even said that last part out loud because I think that was one of Stef’s percussive moments. I went with it and asked Ruach to show me.
Immediately, I was drawn to when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Yitzchak). I started down the long trail of what I remembered, particularly thinking that Abraham had faith in God’s promise to make him a father of many nations and that he acted out of that. Oddly, I felt a sort of a check in my spirit at that point, a kind of a “Woe, boy!” (Look, I talk about this because it may help somebody learn to hear, too. If it offends others that I actually think the Holy Spirit leads me, nothing is going make this digestible for them). You know those moments when some clarity just comes to you? This was like that. It was like being taught through words, except the understanding was simply there. Abraham responded to the test by simply obeying. It was out of awe of God and love, not out of consideration of how God would fix the situation or with the thought that maybe God would not make him sacrifice Isaac after all.
I am not saying that Abraham never considered what God might ultimately have him do. Clearly, when Abraham told the servants that he and Isaac would be back, he may have thought something was up with God, but Abraham also told Isaac that God would supply the lamb for the sacrifice (which wasn’t a lamb in the end, but a ram). He did not know what God would do up until the second he decided to bring the knife down, yet Abraham obeyed. Go back and read the account in Genesis (it’s in chapter 22). See if this doesn’t fit. The key to what I was shown was that God was moved by Abraham’s willingness to obey first - not out of sense that God would not really make him do it. That is what made Abraham special. He did it because he loved and feared God first. Once the Lord showed this to me, something changed in how I understood his ways. I searched to see if this contradicted the scripture. I am so open to knowing if it does, but I don’t think so. It is the fruit of this that keeps drawing me back to concluding that this revelation was from the Lord. The fruit of it has been to draw me closer to God in awe and wonder because I can see a little better what moves him.
Abraham was so close to God and feared him so much (was so in awe of him) that he did not question what he was told to do. God was so moved by this that he not only spared Isaac, he ultimately did for us what he asked of Abraham. (Selah – say “la”, as James Maloney says). It is as if God was waiting since the time of Adam’s fall in the garden to find someone close enough to him not to even consider “Hath God said?” He waited, searching to and fro, until he found someone who would trust him just because he is God – someone who would have a relationship with him. Abraham’s obedience, his faithfulness to God, was the entry into this present darkness of our disobedient making that God was waiting for, the spiritual moment culminating in Yeshua Ha’Mashiach. This made Abraham the father of our faith.
Of course, this begs the question of how our obedient pliability to God in love and awe opens the doors of his faithfulness in our lives?
The morning light became just a little brighter when the Lord showed me this. I am an heir to Abraham’s faith. It’s down in the midst of my spiritual DNA. I want God to have the same kind of faithfulness in me (intimate relationship). I believe this is awakening in the Bride as well. We know we will be found faithful when he returns. The Lord said we will. Part of the awakening to this reality in me has involved recognizing that an attack from the enemy (the stress I hate) can be turned into a new dawn in which the Lord is glorified. Everything the enemy does to attack me can be turned into a victory for the King. This is what the Lord is doing in us together. That faithfulness is the song we sing together.
“Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.”
If you got anything out of this missive, please give it a thumbs up, comment and/or share it. It helps. I sincerely appreciate that you took the time to read this.