Waiting can be excruciating. In fact, I do not know many people, if any, who enjoy the waiting process. As for me, I am unfortunately very impatient. I do not like waiting in a long line. I prefer not to shop online because I do not like to wait for what I purchased. I know, my impatience is a problem! Maybe some of you can relate. The truth is, waiting is a part of life. Although we most likely associate waiting to be a bad thing, it is not necessarily negative. Waiting can oftentimes be good. Scripture teaches us that God's timing is just right, and that God is moving and working in us as we wait.
Abraham is someone who had to learn in Scripture that God’s timing is often different than our own. In Genesis 15, God made an incredible promise to him. He said to Abraham, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” Can you imagine hearing such a promise? His descendants were going to be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Scripture teaches us that Abraham believed when God made this promise to him (Genesis 15).
When God made this promise, Abraham probably had no idea that he would then be ushered into a season of waiting. You see, Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90 years old when their son Isaac, who would carry out Abraham’s line of descendants and legacy, was born in Genesis 21. This season was so long that it seemed virtually impossible for Abraham and Sarah to have children at their ages. Despite the impossibilities, God was still working and Abraham and Sarah had Isaac, their son. In fact, because of their ages, there was no denying that God had done a miracle with the birth of Isaac. It was crystal clear that Isaac was God’s way of continuing Abraham and Sarah’s line, and would bless the whole world through him.
God is not slow in keeping His promises. At just the right time, He provides exactly what we need. He often works in ways so that when He provides, it is clear that that provision is from Him and only Him. He also grows and changes us as we wait. I’m not sure what you are waiting on today, but I am confident that God is working and moving and He can be trusted in the waiting.
Take out your notebook or journal and write about waiting. What is it that you are waiting on right now? How has this waiting impacted your faith? How have you seen God work in the past while you wait? How might God be working in your life right now as you are waiting? After reflecting and writing, thank God for His faithfulness in the waiting process.
After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”
But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit[c] my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” 5 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.”
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
