Christian Living
“For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.” (Heb.10:36)
Waiting time is usually a grueling time; a time of agony and devastation; a time of loneliness and abandonment. No one really likes to wait for an unknown or lenghty period of time. No one really have the patient to do so. Not even those who claim they trained to so.
Waiting can be tasking!
Sometimes I wonder what our patriarch, Abraham, must have been through while he was waiting for the promise of a son to come one day and wipe away the tears of bareness, in twenty-five (25) years! He must have been a very trying time.
In retrospect, Abraham gives us a lot of hope and faith in the provision and providence of God today but I am sure it was not a pleasant time for him and his old wife, Sarah, waiting for the promise to come one day. They must have woken up every morning of that twenty-five (25) years believing that ‘yes, it is today!’ and then getting to realise that it was not so, but till the time appointed of the Father. What a trying moment it would have been for the old folks!
I have often asked myself what kept him going for that long believing in the promise of a son when his body had become dead and the wife’s womb too? I know the scriptures said he was persuaded about the promise of God (Rom.4:21), but could it just be persuasion alone?
Can persuasion alone make a man wait for a promise for twenty-five (25) years for a promise that does not even look likely to come to pass, judging by the physical conditions he was surrounded with?
In my candid opinion, I think there is much more to persuasion in all of this equation. I believe that persuasion (or faith, or conviction like some would call it) was not the only thing that kept him going that long. I think he added a vital ingredient that a lot of us today lack – patience. He added patience to his persuasion and that produced the promise (Heb.6:13-15):
PATIENCE + PERSUASION = PROMISE
The ability to wait on God’s promises is what has robbed a lot of believers of their testimonies. Not with the ‘microwave’ gospel we hear all over today. Many are too in a hurry to get that blessing and get this contract and get that breakthrough at just the snap of their finger. We have lost the virtues of waiting, which holds so much power in actual fact (Ish.40:31; Ps.37:9). This inability to wait has wrecked more damage on the love relationship that is supposed to exist between us and God and has destroyed the will for us to ‘allow God’ bring it to pass our heart desires in His own time.
In the morning of July 14, 2009 on my bed in Kamapala, Uganda at about 4.05am, the Lord dropped a song, a soft rock, in my spirit with the following lines:
If You gave me all that I think I could ever need
If You made me the man I have always wanted to be
If You brought me in contact with people I never thought I could meet
If You took me to places I have always dreamed of
If You did all these and much more
I don’t think it could ever truly express the depth of Your love for me
The lines of this song rocked my world and brought a new understanding to me about the love of God – the love God has for us is much more than just answering every of our prayers and petitions; it is deeper and more enduring even in the most unwieldy moments of our lives.
I don’t care what some ‘microwave’ Christianity has taught a lot of us today and I don’t care about what any quick-fix preacher might think of this – the love of God sometimes might withhold a blessing from us until we are really ready for it.
You know, it’s not everything that your child asks for that you give to him or her. In your parental wisdom you know that not every of your child’s wants are actually and truly his or her needs. In spite of your love for your child you know when to keep some things away; in like manner the all-knowing One withholds His blessings sometimes from those of us who are His beloved, not because He is wicked but because we may not be ready for such. His love compels Him to give to us what is needful and expedient in life.
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Great title, and such an important message. I especially like your "equation." Great reminder!
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