God knows our difficulties; God hears us when we speak to Him; God is nearer than we think; God is more loving than the most loving of earthly friends. He tells us to call upon Him in trouble.
Let us think of Ishmael dying for want of water, and crying to God in his distress, and let us do the same in our troubles!
No matter how small they may seem, God says He cares.
Let us take courage, then; and if God whispers to us when we are sorrowful (like He did to Hagar), "What aileth thee—what is the matter?" Let us listen for another whisper, for He will surely finish the sentence to us, as He did to Hagar, with the cheering words, "Fear not!"
[XXXIV. The Offering of Isaac]
So Abraham was given his dear little son Isaac, and he was the delight of Abraham's life, and of Sarah's too.
But by and by, God wished to try Abraham's faith more than even in that long waiting time for Isaac. God was going to ask him to do about the hardest thing that a man could be asked to do.
God told Abraham that he was to take his dear son whom he so fondly loved, and to go to a mountain a long way off, in the land of Moriah, and to offer him up to God as a sacrifice.
This was to try Abraham's obedience and faith.
Was he to take Isaac! On whom all his hopes rested, who was the joy of his life, and through whom all the world was to be blessed; was he to lay him upon the altar, and offer him up to God, as he did the lambs from his flock?