False gods and fragile altars

I am a statistic. If Mark Twain is right, I am also a lie, and a damned lie.

My lie is a death, the kind that parts us. After 35 married years, my parents divorced. Divorce is a death: a death of promises, commitments, safe havens and false beliefs in perpetuity. I believed marriage was forever and thought divorce happened to other people for good reason.

At the time, reasons and reasoning seemed absent, and even as hindsight offered some clarity, it remains abstruse. History repeats in mysterious ways, and not so mysterious ways. Our false gods and fragile altars belie our beliefs.

“When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’”

“Here I am,” he replied (Genesis 22:9-11).

Abraham is the father of our faith and there is a reason. Who among us could or would raise that knife? Who among us can say they have Abraham’s faith?

I do not relate to Abraham. I do relate to Isaac. In the trust and faith displayed by Abraham in God, I also see the trust and faith Isaac had in Abraham, the safe haven Isaac knew and Isaac’s belief that today would be as innocent as yesterday.

If there was any fear and trembling in Abraham’s heart, surely Isaac felt his own as he could not know or understand the next moment. If history ever paused, it paused that day on that altar. It paused for God, for Abraham and for Isaac. Innocence died on that altar. It died in Isaac.

Truth permeates our soul by its own means. My southern heritage tells me that truth sometimes comes slowly, like a good smoked brisket, or instantly, like a redbone coon dog catching scent. There was a death on that altar, but there was also a birth and a truth.

Amongst all the pain, misunderstanding, anger and uncertainty following my parents’ divorce, a truth emerged that the impediments between God and me were dying. I began a journey during that time, a journey toward a relationship with God unimpeded by limiting beliefs and misperceived havens. I left a home built by my false gods and fragile altars and strode toward one built by a loving God.

Life has continued to challenge me while God challenges my desire to take matters into my own hands. These are the times I remember that first step on my journey — no lie.

“Those who have ears to hear, let them hear” (Matthew 11:15).