God loves your kiddo

The God of our Fathers

“But Dad, you know I don’t believe all that stuff.”

“What do you mean all that stuff? Do you mean the truth claims? Do you mean the wisdom? Do you mean the stories? What do you not believe?”

“I don’t know, just all that stuff, that stuff about God, that stuff about, you know, everything on the mountain, the voices, yeah the stories, and I don’t know about the wisdom. The world’s a big place. Maybe other people have different opinions.”

“Everything that you do believe, that you find valuable, and that even now you weigh the world against—you have received from me, your father. I taught you according to the traditions of my fathers. Every story I told you is as it happened, and now you come to me and say you do not know whether this is true? What I think the problem is…is that you don’t want to believe because I’m the one that told you. You don’t want to believe because honestly, as your dad, I have let you down many times, and frankly I will again. I am a man, boy. I am not God. The God of our fathers, the God who has been my Shepherd all my lifelong to this day, the God who has been my guardian angel and kept me safe from all evil, the God who has richly blessed me even now with you, my son—this God never fails. He cannot fail.”

The boy was quiet.

“I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry I’m not the perfect father, and I really do mean that. I wish I was better to you and your mother. I wish I did a lot of things differently, and even now I wish that I had some sort of magic words to say that could help you see God as He really is and not just relayed through a father’s stories, the memories of a life lived, but none of this really your own. And Jacob, I get it.”

“So for now, I’m gonna leave you, as my father left me to a certain degree, to discover who God is on your own. And I certainly did. I certainly did.”

At that, Isaac left Jacob beneath the stars and open sky in the plains where their flocks grazed, and Jacob stayed there and learned slowly what it means to meditate, but nothing came.

Two weeks later, after Jacob made a fool of his father not far from this camp, he would rest his head again, and in his dreams, the God of creation would come to him and show him the ladder of divine ascent.

Many years thereafter, Jacob, having remembered his father’s words on this starry night, Jacob would bless the sons of Joseph with much of what he heard from Isaac:

“The God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God who has been my Shepherd all my lifelong to this very day, the Angel who has protected me from all evil—may He bless you.”

---

Isaac saw the Lord on the mountain, and the angel of the Lord protected him from harm by holding his father’s hand back. These are precious memories for Isaac, and also traumatic. Isaac knows both what it means to see the Lord, and also to watch a father fail, and bend beneath the burdens that all fathers bear…Isaac has a unique insight into Jacob’s struggle to believe, and his own inability as a father to live up to God’s standards. God’s perfect goodness is hard to believe when mediated through imperfect man, which is why God himself promises to come to each one who calls upon his name, including our little ones.

For context leading into this post, please take a second and re-read these sections:

Genesis 22:1-14 - God tests Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice Isaac.

Genesis 24:62-67 - Isaac goes out “to meditate in the field toward evening” when he sees camels approaching with Rebekah.

Genesis 26:34-35 - Esau’s wives “made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.”

Genesis 28:10-22 - Jacob has tricked Isaac, leaves, and now dreams of a ladder reaching heaven with angels ascending and descending. Here, God reveals himself as the God of his Fathers, and promises not to leave him.

Genesis 48:15-16 - Jacob blesses Joseph’s sons out from the overflow of ‘Tradition’ as record of God’s appearance in his own life, and the life of his Fathers: “The God of my Fathers, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys.”