GREAT comments and commitments up on the ninety-days.com website. Thanks for those of you who are submitting. Encourage you to continue posting progress reports, encouragements and commitments regularly.
It’s only two days in to the challenge, but I am already loving the fresh things God is teaching me. Love it when I see new perspectives in Scripture, or how a passage can mean something TOTALLY new to me based on where I’m at in my own spiritual life and relationship with Christ. In yesterday’s reading I was really challenged by something from the story of Abraham (Abram).
In Genesis 15, God gives a covenant promise to Abraham that He will provide him with a son, and that son will be an heir and bring Abraham MANY descendants. God even takes Abraham outside and says “‘Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!’ And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.” But God delayed (at least in Abraham’s eyes) to fulfill His promise. And when he delayed, Abraham took matters into his own hands.
Abraham’s wife Sarah (Sarai) devised a plan to give him the offspring they desired. She offered him Hagar, their servant, to sleep with and become pregnant. Abraham went along with the plan, thus taking matters into his own hands and NOT trusting in the promise of God. God delayed, and Abraham acted.
Genesis 16:15 I think, speaks more truth into the situation than we realize. It simply says this (emphasis added) “So HAGAR gave Abram a son, and Abram named him Ishmael.” (Ishmael would become the Father of the Arab nation, and enmity would be between he and Isaacs descendants forever) GOD did not give him this son, HAGAR did. The son God promised would come to him later, when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90…WELL past child bearing years. (Which was WHY He delayed. The time of Isaacs birth could ONLY be explained by God. It was a miracle.)
Genesis 17:16 stands in stark contrast to 16:15. Genesis 17:16 says “And I will bless her and give you a son from her!”
How many times do I take matters into my own hands because God delays? I KNOW He will always provide. I KNOW He will be my shield, protector and encourager. I KNOW the promises that He gives…but I take matters into my own hands anyway. My prayer yesterday, was to trust in GOD alone, regardless of how long He delays! Or at least when I THINK He’s delaying.
Till the end,
Jeff
