Jehovah-jireh: The Lord Will Provide

Jehovah-jireh: The Lord Will Provide

Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering on the altar in place of his son. Abraham named the place “The LORD Will Provide.” –Genesis 22:13-14

After years of longing and waiting, imagine the joy in Abraham and Sarah’s household when Isaac was born—even his name means “laughter.” And then, imagine how Abraham’s heart must have sunk, how he must have felt physically sick when he heard God say to him in essence: “Take your son Isaac and put him to death by your own hand and then burn up his body” (see Genesis 22:1-2).

But early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey and headed up the mountain with young Isaac at his side. He must have wept as he walked. And yet the writer of Hebrews reveals to us what gave Abraham the strength to keep going, what gave him the confidence to tell his servants, “We will worship there, and then we will come right back” (Genesis 22:5, emphasis added). God had said his descendants would come specifically through Isaac, not just any son, so if God was asking him to kill Isaac, Abraham reasoned he must be planning to raise him from the dead (see Hebrews 11:17-19). But Isaac didn’t understand. “We have the wood and the fire,” he said to his father, “but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” (Genesis 22:7).

“God will provide a lamb,” Abraham answered (verse 8). And on the mountain, as he lifted his knife over Isaac, he heard God call to him to put down his knife. When Abraham looked up, he saw a ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering on the altar in place of his son. At the lowest moment of his life, Abraham listened for God and looked up to see God at work. Then he celebrated the God in whom he placed all his faith for the future—the God who sees into the future and provides what we need right when we need it.

Has your desperate situation left you wondering if God sees you and your need? Look up and see God at work, foreseeing and providing what you need, when you need it. And realize that he had already provided for your most desperate need long before you recognized it. There was no stay of the knife for his own Son—so that your Jehovah-jireh could provide Jesus as a sacrifice for you.

My Jehovah-jireh, sometimes I wonder if you see me and if you will be on time in supplying what I truly need. Then I look up to you and I see your provision for me in Jesus, reflecting your provision for me in every area of my need.

DIGGING DEEPER