Upheld In Waiting For the Promise

Last week, we talked about resolutions and goals. Sometimes I wonder if I’m going after the right things. Should it be easy? After all, if it is the thing for which I am most suited to do, shouldn’t it be easy?

Or—should it be hard because all things worth doing are worth the effort?

Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest”, said on Jan 4, “Whenever there is doubt – wait. If you have the slightest doubt, then God is not leading.”

I definitely want God’s leading in all things. I want to be successful. Yet, maybe I need to line up with God’s plan for my life in order for it all to happen. If I line up with God’s plan, then His promise for my success will happen. I’m His child. He has a plan for all of us, His children.

Over the holiday season, I was struck by promises God made to key people in His plans. These people had to wait and wait and wait. But—they waited. And the promises happened.

Abe and Sarah. They were old folks who waited for a baby. They waited for 100 years! They messed up when they took things into their own hands and tried to make God’s plan happen their way. But even through that detour, their natural son, Laughter (Isaac), was born. The natural line of the Messiah was established.  He was a child of the promise.

Zach and Liz. They were old folks, too. They didn’t wait as long as Abe and Sarah, but they were old folks and past the prime for having a child. Yet, they waited and God gave them their son, John (who the community thought should be named after Zach). Another miracle baby – his dad’s speech was taken when he didn’t believe John was on the way, but it was restored when John was born and his dad named him what God said. John was the child connected to and announcing fulfillment of Messiah. He was a child of the promise.

Joe and Mary. Young folks who braved the stigma and judgment of a community to do what God asked them to do. Descended from King David, Joe was in the natural line of kings. He should have been the crowned King of Israel instead of a lowly carpenter in Nazareth. Joe and Mary obeyed God in order to bring Messiah into the world. To teach Him in His humanity. Jesus IS the Child of the Promise. Forever.

Wow. Worth waiting for, don’t you think?

Maybe I will wait for God’s plan for my life to unfold this year in 2014.

“For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” Luke 2:39.