Entering Your Future with Eagerness: Patience For His Promises (Part 1 of 2)

Sunday, September 5, 2010

“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” -St. Augustine

Waiting is the hardest part as the axiom goes. We don’t like to wait. The message of our society is the exact opposite of patience. We have fast food restaurants, one-day online shipping, microwaveable food on the go, high-speed internet, credit cards to buy on impulse, and now ITunes to buy music online and just about anything else with one click on a button. Everything seems to shout: “You need this and you need this now!” The problems of this philosophy are more eminent than ever: Over half of all marriages end in divorce, there are millions of people in severe debt from credit cards, most car accidents occur due to people in a hurry, the epidemic problem of STDs among teens and young adults, and the rapid increase of corruption in our businesses and society due to taking shortcuts. When it comes to our faith in God we encounter the same problems. We want God’s promises and blessings right away. Instead of blessings, we deal with pain, problems, and failures along the way and we’re left wondering why we keep spinning our wheels in the mud. The journey to the promised land isn’t easy and brings plenty of hardship along the way, but it is profitable for your walk with God along the way. Let’s look at why God makes us wait for His promises and how to apply these truths towards our future.  

There are no shortcuts on the road to transformation. The development of Christ-like character cannot be rushed. It takes time just like physical growth. God views our lives from the perspective of eternity, so He is never in a hurry. The day who accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, God began shaping you into his image: “Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:5-6)  There will be countless battles, struggles, and hardships along the way, but the outcome will never be in doubt. Your eventual destination is Christlikeness, but your journey to get there will last a lifetime.  

Real maturity is never the result of a single experience, despite how powerful and moving it is. God could instantly transform us, but instead He chooses to develop us slowly. Why? For starters we are slow learners. For most people we have to learn a lesson numerous times before we really get it. This is best shown in the history of the Israel through the reign of the kings in the Old Testament. God would constantly have to remind them of all He provided for His people over and over again.  Second, we have a lot to unlearn. Our bad habits take awhile to develop and in the same way it takes awhile to remove and replace them. Also we are afraid to look ourselves in the mirror and face the truth about ourselves. The fear of what we might discover about who we are keeps us from addressing our problems, so we live in denial. We cannot grow without a humble attitude towards our faults. Another reason is that growth is often painful and intimidating. With every change comes a loss of some sort. What’s comfortable, easy, and familiar is preferred over something that is new, challenging, and scary. Finally, habits take time to develop. In order to develop a Christlike character you must practice them and this takes time. Repetition breeds character and skill. The more you practice something the less you even have to think about it. As Paul urged Timothy: “ Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.” (1 Timothy 4:15)

There are times in your life when you can’t feel God’s presence, but He is always working in our lives despite this feeling. Spiritual growth is often tedious work in the fact that it’s usually a step by step process. God’s timetable is rarely ours. He uses our entire lives to prepare us for our role in eternity. As Rick Warren reminds us: “When God wants to make a mushroom, He does it overnight, but when He wants to make a giant oak, He takes a hundred years. Great souls are grown through struggles and storms and seasons of suffering.” Keep reminding yourself how far you’ve already come and stop focusing so much on how far you have to go. A delay is not a denial from God; don’t get discouraged because things aren’t coming into fruition right away.

Giving thanks is easy when life is going our way and things are as we think they should be. It’s when the storms of life hit that it becomes very difficult. How then is it possible to be thankful when God’s promises and blessings never seem to come our way? God doesn’t expect us to be thankful for every problem, trial, and suffering that comes our way. Instead, God wants you to thank Him that He will use every problem and pain to fulfill His purposes. He wants us to find joy in Him, not our problems. ^“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) We can rejoice in the fact that God is going through the pain with us. He chooses to enter into our suffering. God is always there no matter what we go through.

Never back down and give up on your faith. Instead of giving up, we need to grow up! God will provide us with the strength that we need to get through a difficult period in our lives.  As God’s Word reminds us: “You need to preserve so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.” (Hebrews 10:36) Instead of asking questions like “Why me?”, ask “What do you want me to learn from this experience?” When you’re knocked down, keep getting back up as the lyrics of Get Back Up by Toby Mac reassure us: “Lose our way, We get back up again, So get up get up,You gonna shine again, Never too late to get back up again, You may be knocked down, But not out forever.”  

Why do our plans go wrong? Many misinterpret Proverbs 16:3 :“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.”; as God guaranteeing the success of any plan we set in place with prayer. This is not the case!  As Andy Stanley states: “Don’t confuse your plans with God’s vision.” Instead of viewing failures and disappointments as the final word; we must view them as tests towards growth and tools for learning. Every single event in our lives has a purpose and that ultimate purpose is to bring us closer to God. We must trust Him in the process and ask Him to show us what we need to learn in order to grow. Sometimes our plans aren’t necessary wrong, they’re just not what’s best for us. We may have in mind a certain company we want to work for that is honorable and noble, but God has somewhere else in mind that will be the best for us in the long run for our life. Or we may have a certain person in mind for marriage, but God has someone even better in mind that will bring out the best in us. His plans are for our benefit to better help us towards the life He has in mind for us.

Not only is character developed in waiting but so is our faith. After all, faith is believing despite not being able to see the results right away. As the “chapter of faith”,we find in the Bible, starts off in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  We’re often like the Israelites wondering  in the desert for 40 years, grumbling, moping around despite God’s provisions of manna and quail. Instead of remembering all that God has provided us and thanking Him, we choose to look at what we don’t have and complain. God wants us to learn to trust Him completely and this is why He doesn’t just give us everything we ask for right away. If we always got what we wanted, how could we possibly learn what trusting Him requires? As the Newsboys remind us in their song, Stay Strong: “We’ve come through wilderness and watched , The cloud by day, The burning sky into dawn, Have you forgotten who you are?, Did you forget whose trip you’re on?”

Our faith is like shifting sand. With every wave of change, hardship, discouragement, pain; we lose our footing and begin to slip. We can’t go through life trusting in ourselves to get where we need to be. We need God’s grace and provision to get us there. As the band, Caedmon’s Call, wrote in the song, Shifting Sand: “My faith is like shifting sand, Changed by every wave, My faith is like shifting sand, So I stand on grace”. We have a hard time grasping believing in what we cannot see. We just want to know that it’s all going to be alright and that in the end everything we have hoped for comes true.  ”If only I knew beforehand that I’ll get this job, or get married, or have children, or fulfill this dream…then I wouldn’t worry”, we tell ourselves. God wants us to trust Him completely without knowing beforehand what will happen to us. But never forget that what God has promised us will come true despite the overwhelming odds against it. ” Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23) God is faithful to us and will never let us down. This is a fact you can build your life upon!

Life is a journey when you walk with God, but getting to the destination isn’t easy. There are many roadblocks, detours, and hurdles along the way. There will be many problems, pain, and hardships along the way–this is a guarantee. We have a choice, though, in how we approach our uncertain future–fear or faith. Fear tells us to worry, fret, and avoid what lies ahead because we can’t see it. Faith tells us to trust in the One who holds the future in His hands and has a wonderful, masterful plan for our lives. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

With God we have a bright future ahead of us, even if we can’t see it yet. God is there with us every step of the way guiding us towards the plan He has in store for our lives even when it feels like you’re going in a maze of disappointments and failures. Christ is our solid foundation in a world that stands upon sand formations. When all else fails, He will lift us up and keep us going forward. So stand upon His promises and truth for your life and know that His plan will prevail in your life. Remember along the way to rejoice in Him despite your circumstances. When we learn to grow and transform in His image, trust Him completely, and rejoice in Him always our journey to the Promised Land will be much more enjoyable when we get there. Remember the words God spoke to Habakkuk in the process of waiting for His revelation to arrive: “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” Keep moving forward, the promised land is closer than you think!

**Happy Labor Day weekend everyone! Hope your holiday is safe and enjoyable. Next week we’ll conclude this short 2 week look at our future with looking at how to create a lasting legacy in your life. God Bless.**

Sources: Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life. Zondervan Publishers: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002.