I can't trust a god who tells me to kill my son.

I'd like to make an argument. And the argument I'd like to make is as follows.

If you trust the person making a request of you, the request's depth of goal is directly related to depth of trust for the person making the request.

Example, you are riding public transit. You have an in-ear device playing music via your phone. 

There are some people whose level of trust would not accommodate the request to dislodge the in-ear. I'm sure some of you have seen it first hand. In general, however, most people do not find the request of, "Hey, can you pause your music for sec?" to be too taxing.

Now you are on the same bus, but this time the person asks for your phone. 

That requires a different level of trust. For me personally, a regular acquaintance could probably get my phone from me. Some people however, wouldn't trust their own friends with their phone. And that might be for good reason. Perhaps the phone contains personal data of a nature that is altogether private. Why it is on their phone, who knows... 

Lets say you have a friend with you, but via text message, you have different friend messaging you about their disdain for the friend you are currently with. That would be a reason why you would not "trust" that person with your phone in that given moment.

We going to have to put a pin in this notion but basically there is a level of trust that depending on circumstances, mood, and myriad of other reasons, that level of trust can go up or down.

To move on with our personal trust, lets skip a couple of steps and move towards are greater depth of request. In what setting would the request of "murder someone" be obliged?

The answer for me is easy but vague, and this might say something about my psyche, but here goes. If I come into a room, I see my mom and stranger. My mom has a look of despair and fear, there are tears running down her face, one of her eyes is swollen shut and she's dripping blood from her mouth. She sees me and says, "kill him." God help me, but I think I would try to kill the person. My guilt be on me if my mother has mislead me, but I know my mother pretty good. I've seen her in some rough spots. And if those words ever came out of her mouth, it would be a shock to whole system. Couple that with the state of her and this person I do not know...

I think I know my younger brother better than anyone else on this planet. Given the same scenario, all he'd have to do is look at me and say my name. Hearing the tone of his voice would be enough data for me to make a decision. ...and Hulk Smash!

But we are not talking about a stranger, we are talking about your child. Old enough to reason, on the young side I'd say 9ish is about when the lights kick in regards to recognizing their own position in a scenario. They become hyper aware their impact on a room or a situation, or of the fact that we forgot to bring a goat to sacrifice. Just from Isaac's recollection that we are missing a lamb, I'd say he is at least 9.

Lets put a pin in that. To summarize there are audacious requests given a certain set of stimuli that a person who otherwise would not do the requested thing, might then do the requested thing. 

We started by talking about a phone which is the object of our trust, and why a person might be less trusting with it depending on its content. But I finger-quoted the word trust back there. I was detailing that one friend is texting you smack-talk about the friend you are with. Now you might say, "I don't trust my friend with my phone containing smack-talk about them." But really it still a trust?

I think rather than it being about not-trust, this is still a trust. You know that if your friend picked up your phone, saw the smack-talk, that they'd react in X, Y, or Z way. And if you know that X, Y, and Z are really bad, then its not that you don't trust them, it is that you do trust them to behave poorly given the circumstances. Reactive Trust

There is another type of trust, and that is a trust of your inner thoughts. Going back to your cell phone. Perhaps for a very good reason you have taken nude pictures of yourself. You phone is open and within 2 or 3 taps a person could see your nudes and that I think is a type of objective trust. It is something specific to you, but only you. And to trust that such a thing would be handled with care you'd like would be different than just, "lemme see your phone." Objective Trust

Now the object we are talking about is your son. And God comes and says, give me the life of your son. At this point in the story of Abraham, we have no information that God was explicitly against murder/killing, or at least we cannot be sure from the text that Abraham was aware that God "[hates] hands that shed innocent blood." It could be that God, in Abraham's mind, was a god like Molech, and therefore human sacrifice isn't out of the norm.

But what do we know about Abraham as far as his relationship with God?
We know that Abraham had the following interactions with God:

• God called Abraham out of Haran (Gen 12)

• God promised Canaan, (Israel) to his descendants (Gen 12)

• God promised a lineage of his own blood through his offspring(Gen 12)

• God protected both Sarah and Abraham while in Egypt (Gen 12)

• God promised Canaan to him again (Gen 13)

• God granted him victory in battle (Gen 14)

• God blessed him via Melchizedek (Gen 14)

• God made a covenant with Abraham (Gen 15)

• And it should be noted, that this is kind of a big deal. Think of it like if your insurance agent came a looked over your house and car on the daily to ensure that the deal that was struck to care for your items, was in good standing...making sure he didn't need to repair a cracked windshield or anything. And what's more, Abraham believed it. The son from his own loins, the land, the people so vast they'd be like sands on the shore. MAXIMUM TRUST ACHIEVED!

• God promised to take care of Ishmael (Gen 16)

• God gave circumcision as a means to mark the people of the covenant. (Gen 17)

• God promised His covenant to a future unborn Isaac. (Gen 17)

• God sent angels to remind Abraham of the promise and to encourage Sarah as well (Gen 18)

• God allowed Abraham to haggle over the destruction of Sodom an Gomorrah. (Gen 18)

• God rescued Abraham's Nephew and his Daughters. (Gen 19)

• God protected Abraham and Sarah from Abimelech (Gen 20)

• With a miracle of great significance I might add. God closed up the wombs of all the women of Gerar until the time that Abimelech released Sarah and after Abraham had prayed over that King.

• God opened Sarah's womb and she gave birth to a baby boy at the age of 90 (Gen 21)

You can see that Abraham's trust in God was well founded. Approximately 1800 years had passed between those events and the writer of Hebrews when they reasoned this:

"11:17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[c] 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death."

If we go back through the interactions, could we reasonably conclude that this author, 1800 years later, was accessing Abraham's thoughts with good faith? I think we can.

Abraham had an objective trust in God that he could trust God with his son. Abraham also had a reactive trust that even if Isaac was sacrificed that God could raise him from the dead. God said he's going to do this thing, and he did.  

He wakes up, grabs his boy, hoofs it out to the middle of nowhere, ties up his son and the whole time thinking, God promised to establish his covenant with him. For such a request I can picture all of his actions being done with tears running down his face. He tells himself over and over again, "God will provide, God will provide, God will provide." And like a sacrificial knife cutting through the sandy steps of their sandals, Isaac notices there is no animal for the sacrifice and asks his father, "We have the wood, the knife, and the fire, but where is the lamb."

And while we know this today as a fulfilled prophecy, Abraham replied with, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt
offering, my son.”

Was this a person who believed God would fulfill his promise through Isaac?

I think so.

Was this a person who believed God was just testing him?

I don't think so.

Was he a person who expected God to do something miraculous?

I think so.

And I think what is sorely missed here, is that while Abraham probably thought it was odd to have God speaking to him, there is no indication that he had knowledge that God, Jehovah Jireh, was not the same God as Molech or Ba'al, God simple made promises to him and Abraham believed. Why does this matter? 

Because if it was the custom in that region to sacrifice your children then, to Abraham, this would be par for the course. I offer a different perspective. God, by making such a request and then stopping his hand shows that he is NOT Molech or Ba'al. God, Jehovah Jireh, is firstly the provider, just as Abraham described. 

But again, here is God, keeping his promise to Abraham to keep his son from harm. Ensuring that he would indeed be the seed of a promise...a promise to rescue humanity on that same hill, 1800 years later by the sacrifice Jesus made of himself. 

Can you trust God to do what he said? Yes! Does God hate the hands that shed innocent blood? Yes!