Patience is hard. It’s hard to wait for the things we need and want. It’s hard to be patient when it feels like we are hoping for the impossible.
In Genesis 15, God makes a covenant with Abraham that he will be the father of a great nation. But there was a problem, Abraham didn’t have a son, an heir and Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was ninety years old (past the child bearing years).
While this seems like a problem to man, it was not a problem to God. Still, Sarai (Sarah) his wife convinces Abraham that God will not fulfill his promise and he should have a child with Hagar, Sarah’s maid.
But this wasn’t God’s plan and it was not God’s appointed time yet. Finally, when Abraham is 99 years old, Sarah conceives a child who will be named Isaac, fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah.
For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
Genesis 21:2
By man’s standards, it was impossible to Sarah to have a baby at this age. But it was not impossible for God.
We also see that the birth of Isaac was “at the time of which God had spoken to him.” Abraham and Sarah had waited many years for God to fulfill this promise. In Genesis 16:2, Sarah and Abraham don’t believe God will keep this promise and act on their own.
Waiting is hard. Waiting for God to act is also hard. I don’t know what you are asking from God today. But if you don’t get the answer you want or in the time you expect it. Wait for God and his timing.
In these times of prayer and waiting, it may seem that God doesn’t hear you and isn’t answering you. God’s timing is perfect and we must wait for him. During these days of waiting, our faith grows. When God does answer, his blessing is far greater than anything we could do on our own, just as he did with Abraham and Sarah.
Remember, Abraham’s faith and that Abraham’s line is the one that ultimately brought us Jesus. God was faithful, even when Abraham lost his faith. Abraham could not see the story 2,000 years into the future, but we can. We are heirs to the same covenant God made with Abraham because of Jesus.
