In both cases, the stories were more about the establishment of the purpose of Jesus rather than the idea of being utterly devoted to God. For Noah, as I noted last week, the story prefigures the saving waters of baptism. For Abraham and Isaac, this sacrifice of a beloved son is a reflection about today's Gospel reading where God calls Jesus His beloved Son just before He would be sacrificed on a hill near where Abraham took Isaac. The allegories of the Old Testament are fulfilled in the New Testament to show the scope of God's plan.
The Old Testament readings have language about God smiting and demanding sacrifice because that was the form for literature at the time. Noah's story is told almost exactly as Utnapishtim's from ancient Sumer--the same land that had the practice of sacrificing the oldest child and where the Israelites spent generations in captivity. The early writers transformed the rites and myths of these neighboring religions into something more powerful. They were then fulfilled by the arrival of Jesus and His message of love and redemption.