“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.”
Psalm 130:5
Have you ever wanted something so much that you just couldn’t wait to get it, so you tried to make it happen faster? Maybe it was buying something on a credit card instead of saving and paying cash. Maybe it was trying to get that guy to propose quicker. Or maybe it was making more money, so you took a career path that seemed to get you there quicker.
How did it end up?
I’ve found that when I try to speed up that which takes a prescribed amount of time, I can mess things up. Or just make my life more complicated. You too?
We read in Genesis 12 and 15 that God promises a man named Abram that he will bless him and make his descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky.
Except there’s one problem. Abraham and his wife, Sarai, are up there in age. Sarai is well past child-bearing years. To Sarai, this promise God makes them seems audacious, downright impossible.
So what does she do? She takes matters into her own hands.
Sarai has a maidservant, an Egyptian girl named Hagar. Sarai decides the quickest and easiest way to help God along with this heir is to have Abram sleep with Hagar. Problem solved!
Or was it?
As you might expect, this created a myriad of other issues! Hagar becomes pregnant and despises Sarai. (Can you blame her?) Sarai gets upset and blames Abram for the whole mess. (While this whole fiasco wasn’t his idea, he was a willing party. So I think he’s partly to blame.) Abram tells Sarai to do whatever she wants with Hagar. So Sarai treats Hagar pretty terribly and Hagar runs away.
Many people may think the Bible is about a bunch of holy, better-than-thou people who never sin or get it wrong. Quite the contrary! The Bible is full of examples of messed up people! But God chooses to use the broken and messed up people of the world to accomplish His purposes.
What we can learn from today’s example is that it’s best to wait on God’s timing. When He puts a calling, vision or plans in your heart, don’t try to force them. Don’t try to speed up the process. Just as fruit is better and sweeter when it’s given the time to fully ripen, so it is with us. God will bring things to fruition when the timing is right. So let’s trust Him during the wait.
