BE TEMPERATE WITH YOUR WORDS

DAY 187

Reference text: Genesis 22:1-19

Today, we read one of the masterpieces in scripture: the story of God asking Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. As many times as anyone reads this text, a different layer of thought, learning and emotion will come to mind. It is thus a real mystery to explore the mind of Abraham throughout this scene.

As I read this today, this dimension about Abraham stood out ‘he was temperate with his words’: he was restrained and picked his words carefully. If you spend a moment to think about the anguish he was going through when God explicitly requests for the son of this old age, whom he loved, to be offered as a burnt offering.

In spite of this inner emotional turmoil, he tells his servants, ‘the lad and I will both go up to worship and return’. When Isaac asks about a lamb, he responds ‘the Lord himself would provide a lamb for the offering’. He gives us no clue as to the state of his emotions, but with his words, it seemed as though he was writing what he desired to happen.

Our words are often driven by two things: emotions or facts. However, we have to remain temperate with those words. Words are creative – when God said, it was. Creation was summoned using words and who knows what those two responses of Abraham created. Therefore,

let not your speech be guided solely by your emotion. You’ll end up speaking yourself into trouble.

#sly