Abram How patient are you? Maybe a better question is, How IMPATIENT are you when waiting on God?
Do you have a need to be in control? For example, a child is going to help you fold the laundry and they don’t quite fold the towels the way you like corner to corner, folding half and half. Do you fix it or leave it be? When you are riding as a passenger in a car, are you the one telling the driver to slow down, turn here, take this route because it’s quicker? Yea, me neither.
Do you ever find yourself “helping” God to get a job done? Yeah, me neither.
God had made a “Sands and Stars” promise to Abram. Your offspring will be more than the dust on the earth (Genesis 13:14) and more numerous than the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5). For the record, God has named and knows all of the stars’ names (Psalms 147:4). We know by reading Abram’s story in Genesis 13 – 20 Abram is not a spry young man, and Sarai is beyond the normal age of having children.
So how is God going to keep His promise?
Well, by Sarai fixing the problem, of course. She’s going to go into her problem-fixing mode, like many of us do, and she’s going to fix this problem. In Genesis 16:2, SARAI decides to deliver God’s promise through Hagar, her slave. Sarai said, “I can build a family.” WOW! She must be pretty powerful if she can cause cells to divide, multiply and produce a baby.
Nothing good comes from situations where we try to “handle” or “fix” things without God.
Just because we can’t see how in the world God is going to possibly fix the problem does not mean that He can’t or He won’t.
Our inability to see a viable resolution does not mean God doesn’t hold the answer.
Our limited view and hampered vision does not mean God’s is limited by our imperfections, frailties or faults.
As a result of Sarai “fixing” the problem and “making” God’s promise come true (which she really didn’t), she has a slave who is contemptuous, who runs away, and who makes Sarai feel even worse about her infertility. Then there is the resulting birth of Abram’s first born son Ishmael who fathered the Islamic nation.
When we try to control or fix things without God’s leadership, it not only affects our lives, but the lives of our spouse, children, those around us, and future generations. How does your lack of patience, faith and trust in God affect your life and future?
We know God does keep His “Sands and Stars” vow to Abram through Isaac and without Sarai’s help, but they had to wait on God’s timing some 25 years later.
Doing what God leads us to do is not the same thing as “fixing” anything. That is called obedience, and it is God through us working things out. When we fix things ourselves instead of waiting on God, that is called disobedience, lack of faith, lack of maturity, lack of patience. It’s not a good place to be.
If God has made a Sands and Stars promise, a life changing promise to you, then you can rest assured He will deliver. He NEVER FAILS.