The Nature of Faith, part 5

who, contrary to hope, in hope believed,

so that he became the father of many nations,

according to what was spoken,

"So shall your descendants be."

Romans 4:18, NKJV

It seems I still have this lesson to learn, that when God makes a promise, He's good for it. If God has said He'll do it, He will. If God has said it will happen, it will. If God has said you'll get it, you will. No matter what. God doesn't make promises that He can't make good on.

Take Abraham for instance. Abraham was seventy-five years old when God started making promises to him, promises about a hope and a future for him and his descendants forever. God promised Abraham a new home and country, a land that he could call his own, and He promised Abraham children and family, heirs of the promise. Those promises were repeated to Abraham over and over again through the course of the next quarter-century. At one point, God showed up and personally made a covenant with Abraham--the most sacred of ancient agreements two people could make--and demonstrated that He Himself would uphold both His end of the covenant, and Abraham's. God was swearing by Himself, and then He said, "Look at the stars and count them if you are able. So shall your descendants be."

Abraham was almost halfway through the length of his life when he received that promise from God. He was getting older, his body was starting to suffer the consequences of advancing years, and his wife was aging as well. The situation didn't look good from the start, and at seventy-six, he still wasn't a father. At eighty, he still wasn't a father. At eighty-six, he took matters into his own hands and tried out Plan B; that didn't work so well, even though he fathered Ishmael through it. But God had something different in mind for Abraham. At ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine he still had not received the fulfillment of God's promises. By then, his situation looked, to his natural eyes, impossible. "God," he said, "I'll just be satisfied with what I have. I have Ishmael, and that's good enough for me."

Let me pause here for just a minute.

Many times, we receive a promise from God and expect immediate fulfillment. We expect to see the promised blessing materialize out of thin air right before our eyes just like that (snap fingers here). And sometimes, God does things that way. He speaks, and BOOM, just like that it happens. But other times, God takes some time. He has good reason for it, I'm sure. He's getting us ready to receive. He's moving us where we need to be. He's bringing others into place. He's working on our behalf, working out all things for the good of those who love Him, who are the called according to His purpose. He's always doing stuff, even when we can't see. To us it takes along time, but God has a different perspective.

Let me put it this way. The Apostle Peter wrote that with the Lord, one thousand years is as one day, and one day as a thousand years. Now I'm not certain as to the mechanics and dynamics of that statement, but if we take it most literally, the twenty-five years that passed in Abraham's life--from seventy-five to one hundred--was about thirty-six minutes on God's watch.

Sometimes we get in a hurry. Like Abraham did at minute sixteen in the time frame of God, sometimes we get impatient and try to handle things ourselves. We get ahead of God's unfolding plan, skip steps, skim passages, going forward by leaps and bounds when God wants us to take small, cautious steps. We've got the end in mind when God is working through the journey. And every time we get ahead of God, we get an Ishmael--an ill-conceived, illegitimate, unruly product of our work instead of our faith. What's even worse is that sometimes we delight in the bastardization of God's plan and cease hoping for something better. We think we have what we wanted all along, and it is enough.

But God's plan is still in motion; God's promises are still faithful and true. He's not going to let us down, and he's not going to leave us with broken dreams or broken hearts. Abraham may have been happy with Ishmael; he may have even been happy with Hagar. And perhaps they were happy with him. But one person not happy with those circumstances was the instigator of Plan B, Abraham's wife Sarah, who thought she was helping God out by providing a surrogate. Sarah had always been part of God's plan; Hagar was not the way. And now Sarah was being excluded from fulfillment while Abraham played with inadequacy.

So when Abraham was ninety-nine years of age, and Sarah was ninety, at 34 minutes and some seconds past the hour of God's promise, God Himself shows up again, twice, and makes covenant with Abraham again. This time, though, He cuts covenant with Abraham in his manhood, instituting circumcision as the sign of covenant, forever marking what would likely have been considered the symbolic representation of Abraham's vim, vigor, and vitality. And then God says, "Sarah your wife shall have a son."

It wasn't logical for Abraham and Sarah to expect to have children. It wasn't normal. their contemporaries were likely enjoying grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They were past their prime. The time for hope was gone. And yet when God spoke, reiterating the promises He had been making all along, the Bible says that Abraham, contrary to hope, in hope believed.

Sometimes that's a lesson I still need to learn.