“Father Abraham” by Joel Schoon-Tanis
Recently I’ve been camping out in the saga of Abraham. It’s a story of getting one-upped. It’s a story of a slow burn.
Here is a man approaching his twilight looking back with a melancholy ache, dripping with fatalistic regret. His deepest longing is to speak toward his thinning future and leave an echo, but he has no offspring to carry on his blood and his legacy. He has much to bequeath, but just a servant to receive it. He is marginal at best, and with no child, the mist of his existence will soon be forgotten.
He just wants a child.
Along comes this God who’s always been there—this God who studies the soul of a man—who hears silent aching—who sees mist. His name is Yahweh, and He finds faith in Abram. For three quarters of a century, Abram has felt like a drought, but Yahweh sees in him a tidal wave. He sees Abram’s simple but profound yearning for a son. Just a son.
And Yahweh one-ups him. Like He always does. He invites him outside and dares him to count. “You want a son, huh?” I can almost hear Him saying. “How ‘bout this instead? How ‘bout kings born from your seed? How ‘bout nations cascading down through the millennia? How ‘bout I exchange your fruitlessness for the eternal flowering of the earth?” No wonder Abram falls on his face. He just got one-upped. Unfathomably one-upped.
And this old man chooses to believe it. In fits and spurts, he clumsily believes the impossible.
And then comes the slow burn.
The best meals—those with the deepest, richest flavor—take a long time and a slow burn, but they’re always worth the wait. The microwave is functional and fine for sustenance, but for food that satisfies and sticks with you and is talked about for years to come, you need a simmer—a good, slow burn.
Perhaps a 25-year simmer. A pause for dramatic effect, during which the window for child-bearing was definitely shut. A good, slow, quarter-century burn. Surely Abraham wondered if dinner would ever be ready—if the whole thing was just a farce—if the count-the-stars thing was a false metaphor dangled before him. But he kept a trajectory of faith. And in Yahweh’s goodness, no fewer than five times during that slow burn, He reiterated the promise that his seed would never end. Abraham hovered around the kitchen with the mesmerizing aroma lingering in his nostrils, wondering if he would ever eat, and five times Yahweh reassured him: “Supper’s almost ready. Believe me—it’s worth the wait.”
Blessed are the children of the slow burn, who protect the seed of promise and resist the tug of disbelief, who keep their eyes faithward, who smell the aroma, who never stop hovering around the kitchen.
For they shall be one-upped.
yodelingcatfish 