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God has given you a vision. The Lord has spoken a promise to you and your whole being is lit up with excitement and wonder. You dream of how it will come about and what life will be like in the ‘promised land.’ Perhaps you share it with a friend or proclaim it from the rooftops! Maybe you hide it away in a journal and keep it close to your heart but nevertheless, the promise is precious. But then the waiting game beings and the once uplifting thought of the promise now becomes a weight of unmet expectation that can even become a source of pain and bitterness. What are you supposed to do?
In 2006 I was in a meeting where I heard Sion Alford make the statement ‘You don’t ‘do’ a promise, you receive a promise.’ The meaning could not be more plain but the implications are so huge that I have never forgotten it and think of it regularly. It is human nature to want to see results quickly. We take any opportunity we can find to ‘speed things along’ as we are more than willing to give destiny a boost! Beyond impatience, often times we can feel pressure to perform and weight from others’ expectations. Whether impatience, or pressure we try to ‘do’ promises that have been given to us and the results often lead to frustration, despair, bitterness and even chaos in our lives. This problem is as old as time and no greater example can be given than of the example of Abraham and Sarah as seen in the Biblical book of Genesis.
Abram (whose name God changed to Abraham) is given a promise that he and his wife will not only have a son but that he will become the father of nations; of offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky. Already being too old to father a child and his wife past the age of child-bearing was reason enough to doubt the promise. The fact that years pass with no sign of the promise coming about made the highly unlikely seem beyond impossible. It is in this time that Abraham and Sarah resolve to make the promise happen on their own through a surrogate mother who does indeed become pregnant by Abraham. Though a child (Ishmael) would come from that union the promise God gave was for Abraham and Sarah, not Abraham and Hagar (the maidservant). In God’s perfect timing when all human ability had expired, God birthed the promise and Abraham and Sarah received it with awe and wonder. Sarah gave birth to Isaac and the line of the Hebrew nation was established. All anyone could do was receive it as a miracle and be amazed at God. This, of course, is what God intends for each of us through the promises He gives; your good and His glory! That only happens when you humbly receive God’s promise and not try and make it happen on your own.
God does not need help in bringing about His promises in our lives. In fact any time we try to ‘do’ a promise instead of receiving it freely, we will birth an Ishmael. Though God did give promises to Ishmael (He can work all things together for our good) it is also worth noting that Ishmael and Isaac were in contention with each other from their childhood and their descendants are still in contention to this very day (just turn on the news)! It is not on you to bring about the promises God has spoken to you. If it is His promise to you then it is His responsibility to bring it about. Our part is to continue to pursue Him by ‘acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God’. The pressure is not on you today, it is all on the Lord. Remember, His shoulders are strong, His memory is not weak and He is more than able to bring about His promises in your life. Pray for the grace to receive from God in His perfect timing and believe for the strength to wait upon the Lord. He knows what He is doing!
He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. – Genesis 15:5-6 NIV
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. – Micah 6:8 NIV
Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. – Psalm 27:16 NIV
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