How do you wait in such a climate as instant as ours?
I think, however, that impatience is nothing new. I have been thinking a lot about
Abraham and Sarah of the Old Testament. Boy, did they have to wait? God had told Abraham that he would be the father of generations. He told Sarah she would have a child and OMG she was 100 years old before she had Isaac.
This story is often preached and taught in such a way as to prove the faithfulness of God and how He always comes through no matter how long you have to wait. To be honest that is true and that is a good point to the scripture. However, when you look closely you see just how difficult it was for Abraham and Sarah to be patient. It must have been pure hell waiting for something that not only is a natural need and instinctual, but was also actually promised specifically to them by God.
Most women, if not all women, reach a point in their lives where it is a natural desire to want even need a child. It is a God-given urge/desire. It is God's way of ensuring man goes forth and multiplies.
Abraham and Sarah waited and waited. They tried hard to live their lives in a way that would honour God and they waited and waited. Eventually, they reached the point were they could wait no more. They were old, they felt old, they looked old, they could not envisage the promise of God coming to pass in their lives. They believed their time was running out. Their patience had surely ran out. They were tired. Tired of waiting, tired of longing, tired of needing, tired of desiring, tired of being patient.
So they lost their patience. They took their destiny into their own hands. They were fed up of waiting, so they decided to make it happen. They decided that to do something was better than to do nothing. Abraham slept with Sarah's maid so that he could become a father and have the child he had always waited for. In his eyes God had not given him what he wanted most so he was going to give it to himself. He was going to make it happen in his own strength.
He had his child and then instead of the fulfilment of a dream it all became a nightmare. Sarah was jealous, Hagar became demanding and protective of her son and Abraham was probably so confused. Eventually, Hagar and her son Ismael were sent away. You can read the wholes story in Genesis chapters 16 & 17.
What a mess, and in the middle of it all was Ishmael, rejected, scorned and eventually, bitter. Abraham, Sarah and Hagar had all changed in character, where they had lived a life honourable to God, now they hurt and betrayed each other and brought pain on each other. I think the worse pain must have been to God. Seeing His children suffering and causing suffering simply because they had lost patience. They had forgotten who their God was and they had lost sight of the bigger picture.
This is when you really see the grace of God. Instead of leaving them to sort out their own mess, instead of leaving them to continue to work out their own lives in their own strength, He stepped in again. He waited for them to stop struggling, to stop trying to work it out themselves and he took control. God would not just take control He had to wait to be given the control. I wonder if He lost patience waiting, lol.
Then God gave Sarah the miracle of motherhood and she had Isaac, just has God had promised.
I must say, even though I can read this story in the Bible and see that God will surely come through in His time and in the time that fits the bigger picture, I totally get where they were both at.
I reached a point in my life where I truly got sick of waiting. I mean seriously sick of waiting. If anyone told me to be patient I would not have been able to stop myself knocking their lights out. Patience truly had no place in my life any more and I truly was going to make my life happen as and when I wanted things to happen. The things I believed God had not given me, believe me I was going to go and get them by myself, for myself.
Then here comes the realisation, what a damn fool! What a mess! and what a waste of time! But here again is the miracle of grace. Reaching the end of the road, tired, bruised a bit and definitely disillusioned I look at myself and realise that I am actually OK. My word, in my mess God had actually still been there. I hadn't known it, I hadn't felt it and I certainly hadn't deserved it, but there He was, holding me, loving me, protecting me and as usual, saving me.
Am I patient now, no, I am still confused and even fed-up but one thing I do know more than I know anything else in my life, there is only one way to live and that is God's way.
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. Psalm 139:8
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. Psalm 139:8
