Page 140 - Evidence of Things Unseen

My Son, My Son!

mentioned that we were to know one more final, agonizing test before we left our home
Ion Levie Road. It began the day the Sheriff arrived to tell us we would have to be out in
three days, and this test would be brief, but intense. As soon as the Sheriff left I told my
family that we would indeed be moving, although we had no idea at that moment where we
would go. I then went into my bedroom to seek the face of God. I was troubled in my heart
because I had expected God to receive our intercession on behalf of this people and bring
them forth to a walk of faith. Instead I had witnessed them taking steps backward as they
turned away from God’s will for them to step out in faith regarding certain decisions they
were facing. They were also moving back to a closer affiliation with the traditional
Mennonite churches from which the Spirit had called them forth. Because of these things
I wondered if our intercession could yet be complete.
As I prayed with much anguish in my heart, a terrible thought began to form in my
mind. I sensed the Spirit asking me, “What if I asked you to perform one last great act of
intercession for this people? What if I asked you to not move out as the Sheriff instructed
you to do, and it ended in your being arrested and you being separated from your wife and
children, with your children being placed in government custody for a time? Would you be
willing to endure even this as an act of intercession for this people?”
Terror filled my heart when these thoughts came into my mind. I wanted to
immediately reject these thoughts as being from the enemy. I wanted to believe that he was
simply seeking to torment me further, but it was not the first time I had considered that
God might eventually ask me to make such a sacrifice. I had been dreading this moment for
years.
Several years earlier, right after the Lord revealed that He would strip us from all
things we had gained in our years of disobedience, we had stayed with our friends Randy
and Barbara Barnes for a short time. While we were at the Barnes’ house, I watched a video
that Randy had pointed out to me. It was an older movie called “The Bible,” and it began
with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and it ended with Abraham taking Isaac to the
mountain to sacrifice him.
The end of this movie was very powerfully depicted as it showed Abraham traveling,
with the son he loved, to the mount to make the sacrifice. The agony in Abraham’s heart was
revealed to be tremendous, yet he went forward obediently. The movie depicted Abraham
binding the arms of his son with a sash, and then laying Isaac upon the altar. Isaac may
have been the age of my own son Josiah who was now thirteen years old. The movie ended
with a profound question coming from Isaac’s lips as he spoke to his father. He said, “Is
there nothing that God cannot require us to do?” Abraham responded, “No son, nothing.”
When I watched this movie I was in a time of great testing, and I was carrying a cross
that would lead to a financial death. The pain of this cross was great, but I considered what
it would be like to be required to give up one’s own child. There was, and is, nothing more
precious to me than my children, and I felt that I could empathize with Abraham’s own
agony as I watched this movie. What God required of Abraham seemed beyond normal
reason to bear. It struck me as cruel, for I knew that there had to be real agony and torment
in his heart as he spent three days traveling to the mount with his son.
After watching this movie I was appalled, and I refused to pray to God for several days.
God seemed too terrible to me in the things He required of those who would follow Him.