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| Not Much Has Changed... |
When you really stop and think about it, not much has
changed at all with regards to human nature since the times written in the
Bible. I found myself thinking of Sarah
today (earlier called Sarai). Sarah, the
wife of Abraham who was unable to conceive, as a woman she must have felt a
tremendous amount of frustration. Think
about it – all Sarah’s friends around her having babies, raising families and
there she is waiting to conceive a child herself. I can imagine the thoughts going through her
head.
“What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I produce a child? Look at
Sister So-and-So over there. SHE has a child.
What is the matter with me?” How
she must of coveted and emotionally beaten herself up over her lack of being
able to conceive. Not to mention the
fact she must have driven Abraham crazy! “Come on! Let’s try it again! And again!
And ohhhh Abraham, can you come here for a few minutes????...” Did Abraham see her coming and then turn
around and quickly go in the opposite direction? We women have a way of focusing on something
and not letting go. I’m quite sure if
things are the same now as they were then, women were no different.
God had promised Sarah and Abraham a child, but He did not
say when. How hard it must have been for
the years to have passed and still that promise had not come to fruition. How did Sarah not become bitter? As her
friends children grew up around her how hard it must have been to continue believing
that God would honor that promise. I can
easily understand how Sarah reviewed the promise in her head over and over and
over again. “Maybe God meant it this way…
Maybe I need to do this…” Sarah reached a point where she began to question HOW
God would provide that child. “Maybe I
misunderstood Him… Maybe that child was not to come from out of my own body…
Perhaps my interpretation of His promise was misunderstood…” Desperation makes us do strange things.
Can you imagine the state of her desperation out of having a
child by making the decision to give Abraham her maid servant to conceive a
child? Now I don’t know about YOU, but I
cannot even imagine the amount of frustration it would take ME to turn the man
I love over to another woman to sleep with and conceive a child. (Honestly, she MUST have been
desperate!) Which is what Sarah did, and
Ishmael was conceived. Sarah took
matters into her own hands instead of trusting in God’s promise and decided to “help”
God.
“Now
Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an
Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my
servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with
Sarai’s proposal. So Sarai,
Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife.
So
Abram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. But when Hagar
knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt. Then
Sarai said to Abram, “This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms,
but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong—you or me!” (Genesis 16:1-4)
The fact of the matter is that God doesn’t need our
help. When we try to “help” God we
create a colossal mess. This is yet
another perfect example of how not much has changed since the days of the
Bible. Whenever we try to “help” God we
make the same kind of messes.
“For
my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares
the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
So many times we forget that God sees and
knows so much more than we do and what a mess we make when we try to get into the
mix of what His plans are for our own lives.
This is true even for the most mature believer, because
our thoughts are not God’s thoughts it is hard to be patient and wait on
answers to prayer. The frustration over
a prayer request is not something that has changed with the passage of
time. The questions Sarah must have
asked the Lord are still the same questions we put before Him now.
“WHY Lord am I still waiting? Is not the Creator of Heaven and Earth able
to answer MY measly little prayer?”
Coveting sets in as we look around us and
wonder WHY Sister so-and-so seems to have it so easy and we are still waiting
on an answer He’s already given to HER.
God wants us to trust Him. Trust that He knows what is best. Trust that He is not witholding out on us. Trust that He is able. Trust in HIM.
Trust does not come easy. Faith does not come in easy but it is what He
desires. Are we going to trust Him or put our faith on our own selves
and “help God out.”
Later on in the story, Isaac is born to
Sarah and Abraham. The promise that God
gave to them has been answered. How
surprised Abraham must have felt when God requested Him to sacrifice the answer
to their prayer (Isaac) on an alter before Him.
“Some time later God tested Abraham. He said
to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
Then God said, “Take your son,
your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice
him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis
22:1-2)
Abraham took the wood for the
burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire
and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7
Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said,
“but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide
the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
When they reached the place God had told him
about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his
son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then
he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said.
“Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not
withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Abraham looked up and there in
a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the
ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will
Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son,
your only son, I will surely
bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as
the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities
of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because
you have obeyed me.” (Genesis 22:3-18)
Our
thoughts are not God’s thoughts. What an
amazing amount of faith Abraham displayed in this true story before God. He completely trusted God. Oh that more of us would walk in that
assurance, obedience and trust that God has our best interests at heart. That God has “plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a
future.” (Jeremiah 29:11).
I know that
my own faith is lacking. That the trials and tribulations I experience in my
life are allowed by God so that I will draw nearer to Him and trust in Him. I
rant and I rave and I get upset with Him.
Thank God for His love, His forgiveness, His grace and His patience.
Throughout
the journey of each of our lives we are given a choice, we can try to direct our own path or we can
patiently trust that God will provide for all our needs that He knows better
than we do what should be the desires of our hearts. It is not easy to be obedient. There are many examples throughout the Bible,
just as in the story of Sarah and Abraham where people have tried to “help” God
and have made a mess of things. What God
did with those people is use their “mess” to give us a “message” so that we can
learn from them using their experiences as an example.
That is one of the main reasons why the Bible should be used as our
guidebook. I know that is “easier said than done” a lot of times. Our feelings
in this day and era are no less intense than those back in the Biblical days,
although I do believe that maybe even more so because we live in such a
microwave society where we want what we want when we want it and now!
Thank God
for His patience. Thank God for His
love, Thank God for His patience. Thank God for His amazing grace. Maybe it is a good thing that He knows our
thoughts before we even think them?
“You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from
afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my
ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. You hem me
in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too
wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” (Psalms 139:1-6)
Nothing comes as a surprise
to Him. It is one of the reasons why I
see no point in hiding my thoughts or my actions before Him. How ridiculous is that? I never could understand why Adam and Eve “hid”
from God after they ate from the tree that He commanded them not to. We cannot
hide from God. He knows all and He sees
all…
Waiting on God is not easy,
no matter if it was back them or in the here and now. Using wisdom when we make our life’s choices
is something that will help us as we go forward in our walk with Him. I struggle with this myself because patience
is not one of my strong suits. I
talk with God through prayer as I write to you, my blog reader; I tend to have “temper
tantrums” before my Father. “When?!
Why?! Why not?! I want it!” Type of responses to the moments in my life when He
seems slow in answering my prayer requests.
Since I have come out of a prodigal experience I tend to
still feel the “smarting” of that experience enough to apply that hard lesson
to where I am currently at in my walk with the Lord which makes me more apt to “think”
twice before I decide to “help God along” in answering whatever prayer request
I am waiting upon. No matter what my
current request before Him is, I am in no way anxious to experience “burning my
hand” again on a stove I was told previously not to touch. Or as the saying goes, “once bitten, twice
shy.”
We have a choice, we have
freewill. We can either choose to learn quickly from the current life lesson we
are in OR we can have to repeat the class over and over again until we learn
what it is that God is trying to teach us. (And something we clearly forget is
that usually it is for our OWN good). I
don’t know about you, but I want to learn what it is I need to learn so that I
can move forward, graduate and go on to the next class, because the truth of
the matter is that as long as we have breathe in our body, we will always be
learning and always be growing. Until we are finally with Him.
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