Preface

If we live long enough, the majority of us will hear words or experience a situation that will stun us and paralyze us on the short term. A dreadful comment, an accident, or some other event will turn our world upside down and we will plunge into an abyss of darkness and despair.

A mother may hear her unmarried daughter sob out the confession, "Mom, I'm pregnant!" A police officer may appear at the front door and say with grim determination, "I'm sorry Mrs. Smith, but your husband has been in a dreadful car accident." The surgeon might hesitatingly say, "I have checked the tissue sample for myself, and I am sorry to tell you that it is indeed cancer." Our spouse might blurt out to us, "I just don't love you any more, I want a divorce, I have met someone else." However the message comes, whatever its contents, it will shake us to the core as we refuse to believe what we have just heard.

This book deals with how to begin the process of living with tragedy. It is different from many books written on this subject for one important reason: Instead of creating my own game plan for mastering circumstances and using that as the outline for the book, I have taken a situation from real life as described in the Bible and used that as a "case study" to show the reader how to come to terms with a devastatingly painful situation. By getting the outline for this book from a specific passage of Scripture rather than from my own perspective, I assure the reader that I am not seeking to be either novel or lazy.

I am thoroughly convinced that in the Bible, God has given us several historical descriptions of people in pain as examples of how we should behave when our personal world crumbles. Certainly there are stories recorded in Scripture which are there to show us how not to act in certain exceptional life situations. Those stories are easily recognized as being examples of how not to live as Christians, because they show obviously inappropriate behaviour on the part of the central character(s). Other stories, such as the one around which this book revolves, are wonderful teaching stories and their wisdom can be a light on the path for those who suffer.

The scene we consider from Genesis 22 is certainly a most dramatic and instructive story. It is rich in counsel for those who are living in desperate and confusing situations that seem certain to destroy them. This story is so dramatic that it appears to be one of those moments in a person's life when they are convinced that finally God has made a "mistake".

Come with me into this story which occurred so many centuries ago and seek to view the situation from Abraham's perspective. Learn from this great man, what to do when God makes a "mistake".

Copyright © 1998 — All rights reserved