Ishmael and Isaac

We love the Biblical stories. We love what they do for us and in us. This fall we follow the wanderer Abraham, the “father of many” and the “father of faith”, who “went, not knowing where he was going”. Abraham was living his response to the voice which had told him (past) to “go” from his home country, and to journey (present) to the land God would (future) show him. The writer Thomas Cahill suggests that those little words — “Abraham went” — are two of the boldest words ever written. They mark a departure from the cycle of never-ending sameness which de ned that world, the cycle of repetition it seemed impossible to break out of. But in obedience to the call, Abraham began to move towards the possibility of something new, something unseen yet promised. And so we wander these weeks with our father Abraham, seeing his story and ourselves in his story. Abraham shows us what it means to “walk by faith, not by sight”. All of God’s children who walk by faith are, in this sense, children of Abraham.