Waiting for Isaac

Don't you sometimes feel like Abraham? No, not Abraham the father of faith, nor Abraham when he believed and it was counted to him as righteousness, no, not at that moment. Rather, like that Abraham called by God, who walked with God, who was mightily blessed by God, so far so good, but who still had a promise in his life that was still unfulfilled and whose fulfillment seemed less and less likely.

You see who it is, this same Abraham who had just heard God declaim all kinds of good things about him, inconceivable, unimaginable things, each more extraordinary than the last, and who replied, yes, thank you, that's good, but..., but, I still have this problem and you haven't solved it yet; it's about the one who took a shortcut that we all regret, yes, this Abraham. The great father of faith revealed himself to be very human, and God revealed himself... as God. And often that's where we find ourselves, very human.

The list is sometimes long, sometimes short, but you may have heard God say some of the most amazing things to you, and you rejoiced, you shouted; but at some point you began to say, 'Yes, Lord, but... what about the ministry, the money, the husband, the wife, the child?' And this is where some, at best, do like Abraham and cut corners, at worst, turn away, become bitter, get tired and give up. This is not the thing to do, as you can imagine, God knows very well what he is doing.

I am always amazed by what God sees. We say he knows the end from the beginning, but do we really believe that? It is astonishing that while poor Abraham grumbled about being childless, made himself miserable at the thought of leaving all his possessions to his servant Eliezer of Damascus, God was at peace. He surely was, because He simply calmly explained to Abraham what would happen to his descendants in the future, their stay and oppression in Egypt for 400 years and their exodus. It is astonishing.

While no child had yet come out of our man's womb, God already saw and spoke of the two million or so people (some estimate more than three million) of his descendants who would emerge from captivity in Egypt. Obviously, they saw things differently. God could afford to wait; He was not worried. His divine purposes had to be manifested in His own time. Abraham had to learn to be still.

So do we. And this struck me particularly the other day when I was in conversation with Father God and reminded him of a certain promise not yet fulfilled. He began to remind me of God's purposes and times. God's time for Isaac was in Abraham's hundredth year; why, we hardly know. Abraham's time was probably fifty years earlier. He waited for the promise for years and one day God said to him 'next year'; his wife must have thought someone was being witty because she started laughing. But God said it would happen 'at the appointed time,' and so it was.

Certainly, 25 years may seem like a long time, especially when one is already 75, but measured against eternity, it is only a short moment. Some delays are caused by the enemy and must be stopped immediately; but a supernatural people must not base their thoughts, feelings, and reactions on what happens in the natural world, but rather on what God says, on His thoughts, His goals, and His intentions, and on the time set by Him.

This means embracing the unusual, the unexpected, and the unconventional; recognizing that God's purposes must prevail over what is convenient or even understandable. But as is often the case with God, what seemed complex and unattainable eventually becomes ordinary and commonplace. Fatherhood, later on, became a sport at which Abraham excelled; his later years were more fruitful than his early ones. And to think that at one point all this seemed hopeless; until God's time and purposes intervened. There is an appointed time, it is fitting to embrace it.