Has God ever promised you something and you feel like He isn't coming through on His end of the deal? Maybe you're believing for your debt to be cleared. Maybe you're waiting for a relationship to be created or restored. Maybe you're waiting for a prodigal child to return to their relationship with God.
In Genesis, God promises Abram that he will be the father of many nations. At the time of the promise, Abram was in his 80's. Naturally, Abram and Sarai both had a strong reason to believe that this was impossible, but in Genesis 15:6, the Bible says that: "And [Abram] believed in the LORD, and [God] counted it to him for righteousness." Abram believed.
There are times in our lives that "we believe". I am believing in God for many things in my life. I am looking to God and trusting that HE IS and that HE WILL. However, that doesn't mean that I always do what I am supposed to do.
In Genesis 16, Sarai brings her maidservant to Abram and says, "Have your way with Hagar so that God will give me the promise of children through her" (The Dean Paraphrase). So ... Abram being the man of faith that he is conveniently agrees. But God's promise wasn't in Hagar's being, it was through Sarai. God wanted to show His Glory in His time! Hagar gets pregnant and gives birth to Ishmael, but Ishmael wasn't the promise.
So we have a promise, and we in turn try to force God's hand to receive it in our time, not His. I've been there so many times and you would think that I would figure that out by now, but I guess I am just stubborn. I know what the promise is, but I still look for the Ishmael instead of waiting on God. I'm still humbled by the whole process.
BUT ...
Just because we go to the Ishmael doesn't mean that the promise is null and void. God is true to His promises and He will come through, but we have to have faith in Him, and not the promise. We have to have faith that He will respond in His sovereign time. If we look back to the story, Ishmael was born when Abram was 86 years old. However, Isaac was born when Abraham was 101 years old. Abraham had to wait 15 years after for the promise to be fulfilled. THE PROMISE WAS FULFILLED!
All that said, remember your promises from the start of this blurb? Remember the things that God has promised you and that you haven't seen? Have you tried to make the promises come to fruition by creating Ishmael or are you waiting for God to provide the Isaac? I would love to say that I have figured out this waiting thing but that would just make me a liar. However, I am believing God for the promise! I am believing God that HE IS and that HE WILL. He is real! He is alive! He is at work! Keep waiting on God and He will come through!
Waiting for Isaac,
Dean
So true, so true! I also think we unnecessarily complicate our own lives when we go the Ishmael route...can you imagine the chaos and strife this well-intentioned act brought about between Abram, Sarai and Hagar? NOT worth the aggrevation! I too shall hold out for my Isaac lol
ReplyDeleteamen. Very well said Dean. So many times we become impatient and lose our trust or faith in God. That He will do as He said.
ReplyDeleteAmen!! Thanks for sharing this Dean. It has certainly been a blessing to me today as I wait for the "Issac" in my life.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that, brother.it get's harder when you don't even know if there is a promise. Trust/Faith is a gift from God, He is the one enabling us to trust Him...when we come to those moments were we do like Abraham, when he was willing to sacrifice Isaac, God comes in and tells us that He only allowed this to show us how strong our faith really is, not for His sake, but for ours...He knows it already... He also never allows us to be tempted wthout giving us a way out. We just have to do it....Stand on the truth, hold on with every fiber of our being, our sould sold-out to Christ...and you are right, then we fail, but God is still who He was, is and will be...How wonderful He is and how can we ever doubt that what He has for us, even if we have to wait, wouldn't be worth the wait....
ReplyDeleteGod bless you Dean, you are a blessing!