If we think about key milestones in our lives they are cause for great joy and fond memories.  Often times we wish we could go back to that moment, or remain in that experience.  I still recall the youth retreat that I led along with another Divine Word Seminary, we were in the mountains of Central Mexico in the State of Mexico North of Mexico City.  We were in a huge log cabin, really roughing it.   Early in the mornings the fog would cover the mountain, I would walk and pray and could just feel the mighty presence of God,  it was one of those moments I never wanted to leave.   I knew that God was truly present to me and speaking to my heart to be a Divine Word Missionary priest.   The return to the cabin was with great joy as the youth were just getting up and the girls were preparing breakfast, and the smell of hot coffee.   I share this because like Peter, James and John, being on that mountain with Jesus I didn’t want to leave there.  But I knew much awaited me back in the valley, not only the village with the people, but back in the United States as I awaited and prepared for  ordination.

There is something that is very striking in the word of God that I never noticed before.  In the many years I have preached these scriptures I never noticed why it is that God honored Abraham.   Yes, God had called him out of his own land to a new land, God had made a promise to number his descendents as numerous as the stars in the heavens  or the sand of the seashore, Abraham’s blessing came because he was willing to give back to God, the very means by which the promise would be fulfilled, namely his son Isaac.

What we learn today is that we cannot hold back from God.  Even when what is being asked seem completly unimaginable, unitelligable and out right just plainy making no sense, we trust in God and we do as God asks of us.

“I swear by myself, declares the LORD,
that because you acted as you did
in not withholding from me your beloved son,
I will bless you abundantly
and make your descendants as countless
as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore;

Go get your blessing, stop withholding and start trusting and giving to God.  I believe if we withhold the blessings we’ve already recieved and refuse to use them for God, they just might be taken away.  But what is clear is that when we are willing to give away that which we hold dear, our time, our talent, our money, our children, our property our very lives, if were willing to give it all over to God we will be so blest.   Let’s go our there and get our Blessing, and let’s not hold back from God.