"Ease and predictability are not among God's promises."
"Take heart, you who wait! What God idd for Abram and Sarai he does for all who wait for Him. He is for youm not against you; He feels your ache, he hears your groaning. And note: If He is silent now, as he was for so many years with Abram and Sarai, it is the silence of his Higher Thoughts. He is up to something so big and so unimaginablely good that your mind cannot contain it.
Abram and Sarai recieved from God so much better than what they wanted. They would have settled for just a baby; what they got was a baby who would be the progenitor of a nation, a baby thorugh whom God would bless the whole world. Through their son, they would become the ancestors of noneother than Jesus Christ! All the years they wwere waiting and wondering if God heard their prayers, and if he did, did he even care? God was quietly doing a good work for them and forthe entire human race that would dwarf, in excellence and beauty, the thing they hoped for. What we see God doing is never as good as what we don't see.
We must learn to place all of our little waitings within the context of a larger Waiting -- the Waiting for God's redemption of His fallen creation. The things you and I wait for --- a child, a job, health, happiness, fulfillment -- these are mere signs and shadows of the redemption that is to come. Whether God grants us our dreams or denies them, he does so only as part of his larger plan to save us for eternity.........
God's dealings with us are always on the order of what he did with Abram and Sarai. He makes his promises, and he will keep his promises; but just how and when he will keep them is somehting for which we must wait. But keep them he will, and in ways other and better than we can think, as he works for our good in all things. As he promised Jeremiah, undert he bleakest possible of circumstances, so with us: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." (Jer. 29.11)
Ben Patterson
Waiting- Finding Hope When God Seems Silent
6 comments:
I like the new look of your blog! It reminds me of Fall and pumpkins! :)
I LOVE that book!!
and me too =D I like the site too. My fam wants you to take us some Fall family photos when you come home in November!
hi ams, I love your new page! I love the pic! I know you are in hihg demand but I still would absolutely love for you to take some pics of aaron and I when you come home!Have you heard anything new about the visa?
ok, I meant high demand, sorry!
I just bought "She's My Kind of Rain" Yay. I love it =D. And I think of you! Do you still have our "rain" mix?
Christina: I do indeed still have the rain mix... and every time i play it I think of you!... and then I wonder... she's got the Nicke Creek mix! :)
I would love to try and take some pics of your fam... I'll bring my camera!
I'm enjoying the book...although it's words come hard... especially now. It's the second time I've read it... and still very applicable!
Ashley: thanks! I like it too... I love the fall.. event hough we're about to enter summer... but I think I live in the fall! :)
Melissa: thanks! I would love to try and take pics of you guys when i came back to the USA... I know that's something I promised y'all back when you were engaged... and I would still love to do it!
can't wait to see you all!!
news on the visa... it's still denied. We went to every measure... all the way to Jim DeMint to try and get his visa approved... and the Lord just isn't allowing it. thus... "be humbled and submit to my power" (psalms)
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