| |  the toxins of acquisition...faith and reliquishment
“The Abraham story narrates a way of living in which God is personal and immediate, in which God is embraced and followed, in which God speaks and is obeyed…the spare reticence of the narration invites a participating imagination—all that leaving, over and over. Habits of relinquishment became deeply ingrained in Abraham. They become deeply ingrained in us as we read. Leaving Ur and Haran, leaving Shechem and Bethel, leaving Egypt and Gerar, leaving Beersheba. Leaving, leaving, leaving. But every leaving was also a lightening of self, a further cleansing of the toxins of acquisition. A life of getting was slowly but surely replaced by a life of receiving—receiving the promises, receiving the covenants, receiving the three strangers, receiving Isaac, receiving circumcision, receiving ram in the thicket—being transformed into a life that abandons self-sovereignty and embraces God-sovereignty. Abraham did that for a hundred years: ‘sacrifice—Is slow as a funeral procession in rush-hour traffic, the sort of word—Other words pass, honking…’ In the process of leaving behind. Abraham became more, gradually but certainly realizing that relinquishment is prerequisite to fulfillment, that letting go of a cramped self-will opened up to an expansive God-willed life. Faith.” >>>Eugene Peterson |
