How much should we trust God?  One Hebrew story that asks this question in a highly acute way is the story of Abraham and his son Isaac.  One day, the account goes, God directed Abraham to take his son Isaac to a mountain and sacrifice him.  What, we might ask at this point, is God thinking?  From our understanding of the cultures of this time, we know that many peoples engaged in child sacrifice; for this reason, perhaps Abraham did not think that God's request was overly unusual.
     To our twentieth-first century eyes, however, it seems preposterous and outlandish. What kind of a God would ask one of his followers to kill his own son?
     Christians of course will say that in asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, God was foretelling the way in which he would see his son--Jesus--sacrificed on the cross for the redemption of humanity.  As God would one day sacrifice his son, so he asked Abraham to sacrifice his.
     Although I cannot quarrel with this interpretation, it still leaves me wondering:  why did God think it necessary to demand Abraham do such a thing and, subsequently, immediately before Abraham plunged a knife into Isaac, tell him to stop?  And what was Isaac thinking?
     I'm reluctant to answer this questions by saying that they are simply part of the mystery of faith, and that by its very nature faith is a walk in the darkness.  While faith is indeed often a walk in the darkness, it doesn't answer every question.
     So we're back to square one:  how much should we trust God?  If I may draw a page from the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, I note that for Kierkegaard, we either trust God with everything or we trust him with nothing at all.  It's really that simple.
     Oh, how simple, but oh, how complex!