We all do it. We all do it. We clutch. We cling. We wrap our fingers around the people and possessions we treasure most.

Convinced that if we just hold on tight enough, we can keep them safe. But what if God is gently prying open our clenched fists,

not to take something away, but to free us from what's controlling us?

Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall takes us to an ancient mountain top,

where one father learned the hardest and most liberating lesson of his life.

Chuck titled today's message, Abraham, the father who released his son.

The story we're looking at in Genesis chapter 22 is not the story about the loss of possessions,

something that could be purchased for a price, or the loss of an occupation, or the loss of a dream,

a long-awaited desire. This is the loss of a person or the potential loss of a person. This is the story

of a father, an old and aging father whose delight of his life is his boy. And it's the story

of his releasing his boy in the mystery of God's will to be taken from him. There's a command to be obeyed at the beginning

of Genesis 22, and you can read it along with me. Just follow along. It came about after these things

that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of

Mariah and offerth him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.

Now, why would a good God ask a kind and gentle and loving father like Abraham to do such a thing?

Well, it's clear to put to test the validity, the authenticity of the man's faith.

Was Abraham more in love with the gift of God or God himself?

Which is a question every parent has to ask himself periodically.

Do I adore the gifts God gives me more than I adore the giver of those gifts?

Have I turned to worshiping the ones that God has

granted me rather than the one who gave me these delights in my life? The word burnt offering

really means a whole burnt offering, W-H-O-L-E, an entire burnt offering. When that kind of

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