Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you.
Genesis 22:2
Abraham was told to sacrifice his son Isaac—not for just any old reason but to reveal the truth that only through death can your life be truly devoted to God. But it wasn’t the death of Isaac that was really the point here but the death of Abraham. It would be worse than death to have to kill the one you love, but that’s what God wanted Abraham to do in order to prove his faith, die to himself, and die to his feelings that fought against him with every bit of their energy, telling him not to do what he was being commanded to do.
Dying to your urge to do what makes sense even when it’s directly opposed to God’s commands is at the foundation of faith. Dying to self is refusing to let you be your boss any more and deciding that no matter what God asks, you’ll do it. No matter how crazy it sounds, you’re in. You’re in because you know that God can be trusted and that you want his best. That makes it easy to do the hard things; they are no-brainers when you know that of course God is good and can be trusted, so you can do whatever he asks without any worry about the outcome.
Abraham was asked to do an unimaginable thing, but he never hesitated because he knew God and he knew that if God asked him to do it, it must be for the best. The world might consider that insanity, but the believer considers it necessity. When doing what God commands seems impossible, remember Abraham, and remember who God is. Either he is perfect or he is imperfect. What you decide to do after he commands you to do something proves which one you think he is.