What if this past year was just a year where God was making sure your heart was ready? I’m not talking so much about God testing you but preparing you. Even if you think you utterly failed in how you responded to this past year maybe God had used a season of waiting, mourning and praying to push you to your limit to make you more durable for the road ahead.
That doesn’t sound safe. That doesn’t sound like Abraham was in his comfort zone. That doesn’t sound like Abraham was trusting in himself and leaning on his own understanding. Further, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son–the one thing that was his dream and his great love and joy Abraham was willing to do this demonstrating that he loved God more than anything or anyone else (see Luke 14:26). Would you be willing to follow God to a foreign land or be willing to give up as a sacrifice to God the one thing/person you loved the most?
If the voices of prophets, angels and other leaders for God is binding, how much more binding is the voice of Jesus?? How much more binding is the Word of the Scriptures? Yet because we do not see the consequences as evident in our lives, we refuse to listen. The immediate consequences that come from the hardening of hearts might not be the judgment of God, but He certainly allows in His perfect merciful wrath necessary reminders of what happens when we don’t hearken to the voice of God. When we harden our hearts and aren’t obedient we deny ourselves the chance for God to open the storehouses and shower down blessings upon us for our willingness to change, for our obedience.