Blue    a little of this, little of that...

So before Abraham decided to offer up Issac and die to his dream before fully embracing it... what was going on in his mind?  What felt good, what felt bad?  Before he died to rise?

                                      Antechamber

• Did he tell his wife?  That could have caused some major problems?  Honey, i'm going to kill our son (because God said so), i'm the head of the household.  See ya at dinner.
• The pagans offered their children to occultic gods as sacrifices.  That surely would have cost some mental stress since it was the Author of Life Who'd given him the promise and preferred people not practice murdering on one another.  Only now He comes but this time He sounds just like the devil!  Talk about having to know Who's-Who.  Gotta be going by some deep thing in that relationship to know the difference. 
• Had Abraham feared man he wouldn't have done it because what testimony is there in my God is Good, Loving, Protective, has a Future and a Promise for me BUT i had to kill my kid to get it,  just like how your gods tell you to kill your kids as human sacrifices so your life will be better.  The pagans wouldn't have seen anything different so why change Gods?
• He had to battle over the fact that he already waited so long for something good to happen in this area of his life because culturally speaking the lack of having an heir is peer pressure so when God finally showed up with a promise to make that social pressure go away, he then had to die to the internal need for cultural acceptance.  Only afterwards society would be able to think even less of him once they found out he served a God that asked you to kill your children for who knows what reason?  That's not very appealing, how many people would want to follow this religion?  Even some pagans are "good" and wouldn't want to do that.  Besides, wasn't all the mental torment before the kid arrived enough?  Why go back to worrying always what people are thinking about me?  This feels pretty good, people know i'm blessed having this kid in old age, should i walk away from that?  Now?  This cannot be God, i've already paid the price, haven't i?  Surely this cannot be God talking to me, it doesn't even sound like God!  Yet somewhere deep within Abraham, he knew it was.  He had to stand alone in that decision.  You always stand alone when its time to die. 

Wifey had no influence.
Society had no more influence.
The dark sided fears had no more influence.
Only the obedience to God's Voice was left to influence him, that's all there is when it's your turn to Die and Rise.