A long wait for God’s promises
Let’s face it—nobody likes to wait. In our instant society where you can make an online purchase and find it delivered to your door within hours before ever leaving the couch, the idea of waiting is increasingly foreign. It’s as if all of the cultural conditioning of the last 100 years wars against the long slow process of growth that the Lord desires to work out in our lives.
In the Hebrew Bible, often referred to as the Old Testament, we can easily pass over the repeated themes of waiting. But if we’re willing to slow down and dig a little deeper, we realize there’s a pattern emerging.
Abraham waits 25 before Sarah gave birth to Isaac.
Isaac was 40 before he finally met his wife.
Jacob waits 21 years to marry Rebekah
Moses waits 40 years in the desert before God’s call on his life was manifest
The Israelites were in Egypt for 430 years before God delivered them.
The Israelites waited 40 year more years in the wilderness before entering the promised land
Are our lives much different today?
We spend months, weeks, and years slogging through the challenges of life, looking for a glimpse of hope that things might be just a little faster. In all of our desire for speed, for quick fulfillment, and instant gratification, we miss the small voice of God’s Spirit working slowly, methodically behind the scenes to shape us into the people He wants us to become.
Are you willing to endure the waiting?
To trust that you have a good Father who’s got your best interest at heart?
We’re too easily swayed by the lie that God won’t accomplish his promises.
We’ve been let down by our fathers, our mothers, those close to us. Trust has been broken by those in authority; justice has been denied. We allow ourselves to slide into the belief that God will do more of the same.
Buried in the stories of the Hebrew Bible, we get a glimpse of God’s character that is easy to miss. As God reveals him name to Moses in Exodus 34:6, we discover that He’s a gracious and compassionate God; slow to anger—rich in lovingkindness and truth. He’s full of justice, tempered by His love for humanity. It’s hard to believe, because of the examples we’ve so intimately observed in our own lives.
But if can step back and trust the nature of God’s character in scripture, the waiting takes on a whole new meaning. If God is full of lovingkindness, compassion, and truth, we can believe that He’s working in those long, hard seasons of waiting.
We can trust that He’s got a plan for us that’s better than the ones we make for ourselves. We can lean into the words of Paul that declare that Messiah Jesus can do more than we can ask or imagine because of His Spirit that is at work in our lives.
You may be in a season of waiting. You may be frustrated that life isn’t going the way you had planned. You may be tempted to take matters into your own hands and force your own way.
My prayer is that you will learn to rest in the waiting. That you’ll trust that the same God, who created the world by the power of His words, is at work in the world—and in your life. That you will come to the a pervasive realization of his goodness and lovingkindness. And that you will believe with all of your heart that He who began this good work in your life will be faithful to complete it in the best possible timing—for your good and His glory. 🙏
