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When An Altar Is Hard To Build
The news hit me hard. I wasn’t the same for the next several days. A wonderful Christian couple had lost their beautiful little girl. She was doing great one week but then tragically a few days later she died. How do you deal with that? I wasn’t the one with the immediate loss and even my mind didn’t want to process an answer.
I went to the visitation and was so touched. A collage of pictures of this little one was placed in the foyer. One frame said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven”. The other said, “Jesus loves the little children”. It was comforting to see such innocence before me and know that Jesus’ words were true.
My greatest joy came when I was finally within sight of the mom and dad. There they were with facing smiling and tear moistened eyes. It reminded me of how Stephen’s persecutors saw his face as the face of an angel (Acts 6:15). It was faith on display! I told them what it did for me to see them smiling from a distance. The mom said, “Good. We want people to see what we have in us so that maybe they will desire to have what we have.” The dad said, “I told my wife before we came that we had to buckle down today. We are Christians.” I marveled at the devotion of these two children of God.
I thought of other men and women of faith who built altars when it was hard; who worshipped when they hurt. Abraham’s life was characterized by altars and tents (Gen. 12:6-8; 13:3-4; 13:18). His tent demonstrated that he knew he was just passing through this world. His altar demonstrated his loyalty and devotion to his Father in heaven. But the day came when he had to build his hardest altar ever. It was the one on which God asked him to offer his son. My heart is ripped out when I hear Isaac say, “My father! Look , the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Oh, how that had to hurt. The text continues, “And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood.” Those had to be the heaviest stones he had ever picked up and put in place. Abraham stayed devoted to God when he didn’t know when (the promises would be fulfilled), where (God was leading him), how (Sarai could have a child at such an old age) and why (God would ask him to offer his son). I’m sure my friends didn’t know why their daughter left them so early in life but they kept walking in the steps of Abraham’s faith (Rom. 4:12).
I remember King David as he faced the inevitable death of his newborn son. David pleaded with the Lord, fasted and lay all night on the ground. The seventh day came and David heard whispering. He knew what it meant. He said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” And they said, “He is dead” (2 Sam. 12:20). What will David do? How do you deal with that? “So David arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes and he went into the house of the Lord and worshipped” (2Samuel 12:20). It was the response of a man devoted to God and what comfort it must have given him!!
We will never have a greater opportunity to win others to the Lord than we are hurting. When we continue worshipping God in such moments, people notice. It may be the very thing that gets them to thinking deeply about their own souls. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas were surely hurting after they had been beaten and put in prison. They could have moaned and groaned and complained. “But at midnightPaul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:25). That kind of devotion moved God to bring an earthquake and moved the jailer to ask “Sirs, what must I do to be saved” (Acts 16:30).
We sometimes think that the great examples of faith are found only in the Bible. But today, I’ll add the names of two more modern days saints known by God to my list. May God bless them for erecting their altars (worshipping) even in their hurt. Let’s all do the same.
