The story of Abraham (almost) sacrificing Isaac is one of those Bible stories I’ve heard so many times I almost don’t hear how weird it is anymore.

Abraham has waited his entire life for kids and is finding fatherhood significantly more complicated than he’d imagined. For one thing, God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham goes to the preordained mountain and gets as far as reaching for the knife before an angel intervenes: “Do not reach out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God and you have not held back your son, your only one, from Me.” (Genesis 22: 10-12). Abraham then re-receives the promise given to him in earlier chapters: we will be the father of many nations. After, Abraham and Isaac go back down the mountain to a quasi-happy ending.

None of this tells us what went through Abraham’s mind as he trudged up the mountain or when Isaac caught on to what was happening. It doesn’t tell us if Abraham had decided what he was going to tell his wife, Sarah, and if he’d allowed himself to think about what their marriage and lives would be like without Isaac. It also doesn’t tell us how this episode affected Isaac and Abraham’s relationship or what either of them did tell Sarah about the trip when they got home.

When we tell this story, we usually echo the angel. We say that it’s about fearing God, about being willing to sacrifice everything, about obedience, and it absolutely might be, but my New Testament professor told me that stories lose their power when we only let them mean one thing, so let me suggest a different telling, one that is about coming to know God and making choices in the face of contradictions.