Sunday, July 26, 2009

The Timing of Hope -- Hope Chronicles 87

Recently, I found two adorable small leather Bibles with horses on the cover. They are geared towards kids and I knew just the two little girls they would be perfect for. Catch -- their birthdays were a couple months out. I got them, thinking I would wait to send them. I couldn't. I sent them with a note and told them this was to help stretch their birthdays out.

Patience has never been my strong suit.

I know that we are told that we need to wait on God. However, I sometimes bemoan how slow the waiting seems. I want things to happen now. In the midst of difficult situations, this lack of patience can cause me to despair. "What if ____ never happens?"

So I am utterly amazed at Abraham. God promises him a family that will out number the stars. Yet, he had to wait years and years to have the one son God promised him and the one Sarah helped along. In fact, God's promise of Abraham's descendants out numbering the stars didn't happen in Abraham's lifetime.


To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.

Erich Fromm


How do you not become desperate? I think -- and this is so hard to do -- that it is constantly reminding yourself of who God is. God cannot lie. What He says he will do, will come to pass. But we also have to remember that God's time and our time are often two different things.

In the waiting, I need to learn to rest in what I know about God.





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2 comments:

Joyful said...

Great thoughts Amy. Waiting is hard.

I'm often reminded of the situation in Daniel 10, especially verses 12-13, "Then he continued, "Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia."

God is moving and working in the waiting, but sometimes His answer may be detained because of battles we never see that He is fighting on our behalf.

Keep trusting in what you know about God. He loves you Amy!

Hugs,
Joy

Kim said...

So true... waiting can be so hard and frustrating. We know how we want God to answer our prayers, and when (yesterday, of course!) But it is really hard to keep believing God when it looks like nothing is happening, and yet not desire whatever he has promised so much that we fall into despair because we don't have it yet. Actually, this sounds a lot like the story of my life for the last few months! I like your philosophical, applying Biblical truth to real life posts. Keep 'em coming! :o)

Blessings,
Kim