IMPATIENCE WILL ALWAYS BIRTH AN ISHMAEL

Gr’ma, Gr’ma, Gr’ma, GR’MA!!!! Caleb’s impatience was coming through. I had promised him that we would go downstairs and play after I put Baby Nathan down for his morning nap. Caleb has the patience of a 3 year old and although he may understand the word “later,” later occurs to him much sooner than it does to Grandma. He did not want to wait until I had given Nathan his bath and bottle and snuggled him into bed for a couple hour nap. Caleb’s experience tells him that Grandma has never broken a promise and in just a little while he will enjoy all the fun and personal attention that Grandma wants to bestow upon him, but there is one minor detail missing, Grandma is still upstairs. His little mind reasons, Grandma has promised to play with me downstairs maybe I can help make her promise a reality. Caleb has a plan. He will open the basement door, turn on the light, go down the stairs and then he will receive the promise.

PROBLEM!!! Caleb has birthed an Ishmael!! By taking matters into his own hands, he has what he perceives to be the most important ingredient;”being in the basement.” Caleb is downstairs in the play room but the JOY of the promise was spending time, playing with Grandma and she is still upstairs. The predictable response of a 3-year old is a loud cry for Grandma to join him, which I did after Nathan was soundly asleep. Have you ever become focused on the “missing ingredient” of a promise and birthed an Ishmael? You are not unique; faithful Abraham tried to assist God before “natural circumstances” would prevent even God from performing what He had promised.

In Genesis 12:2-3, at the age of 75 years, God promised Abraham that he would make of him a great nation and that in him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. In verse 7, God promises to give all the land to Abraham’s descendants. In Genesis 13:16, the promise expands from a great nation to so many descendants that they could only be numbered if one could number the dust of the earth. A few years pass and Abraham becomes a little anxious. In Genesis 15, he reminds God that he still has no offspring. God replies by showing him the stars and assuring Abraham that his offspring will be in number as the stars. The years continued to roll by until finally Abraham and Sarah, at the age of 85 and 75, decided to help God out with the missing ingredient and Ishmael was birthed.

I have heard it preached that Abraham sinned, but sin is rebellion against the Word of God and it was not out of rebellion that Abraham acted. We read where God bestowed a blessing on Ishmael and God will NEVER bless sin. I believe that Abraham was so full of faith in the promise of God that he convinced himself that God had just opened the door of opportunity to the fulfillment of that promise. The missing ingredient was not a son, as Abraham supposed, but a much more important detail. Abraham had forgotten who “I” was!!! Ten years prior to the birth of Ishmael, God had promised, “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you; I will make your name great.” The only input God required from Abraham to fulfill His promise was Abraham’s faithfulness.

Many times, I have impatiently or impulsively attempted to fill in a few details that seemed to be missing in the plan God was working in my life. I convinced myself that the action I was about to take was a door of opportunity that only God could have opened. Every time I have forgotten that while it may be MY life, it is GOD’s plan, an Ishmael has been birthed. My life has been blessed and often God continues with the plan to bring the promise to fruition, but not without negative consequences to my actions. Like Caleb waiting in the basement, I have felt the frustration of having all my plans in place only to realize God didn’t have His plan in place yet. As Abraham and his descendants have lived with the consequence of Ishmael’s birth, I have lived with regret over the results of my impatient actions. Oh, I was still saved, I was still blessed, the promise would still come to pass but I had to carry all the baggage of my Ishmael along the journey toward the promise. When God makes you a promise, learn to wait patiently for Isaac, you will not only have the blessing of God birthed in you but you won’t have an Ishmael to deal with before you achieve victory.

BORN TO SERVE THE LORD

Tim Tebow was born Aug 14, 1987 and is the Heisman-winning quarterback for the Florida Gators. His parents were missionaries to the Philippines when Tim was conceived. His mother suffered a life-threatening infection while pregnant and her unborn baby suffered a severe placental abruption. Doctors recommended that his mother abort the baby to save her life but she refused. Tim was carried to term and both he and his mother survived. This is the subject of a controversial commercial produced by Focus on the Family that will be aired once during the Super bowl pregame and once during the actual game. The protests are from Pro-Choice groups who argue that this commercial is trying to take from women the choice to have an abortion. Once again they have ignored Mrs. Tebow’s CHOICE to give her son life because the only valid choice to this Liberal group is TERMINATION!!!

Famous pro-abortionists such as Richard Dawkins will argue that Tim Tebow is on this earth by chance and a stupid decision by his mother to risk her own life that her son’s life might be preserved. Dawkins argues that Tim’s life occurred because his parents just happened to come together on a specific night at a specific time and that specific sperm was the one that survived to fertilize the egg. While the facts, as Mr. Dawkins state them, may be true, a new life is so much greater than scientific fact. God may have set the scientific order of reproduction in place and left it up to mankind’s emotions and actions to start the process, but our life comes from the breath of God. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou came forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” We are all born for a specific purpose and God has a plan for each precious life. We are all “BORN TO SERVE THE LORD.”

Tim Tebow and his family understand the great responsibility each life is given by God. Tim isn’t just a good football player or a popular quarterback; he believes in living his faith. Antonya English, a staff writer for the St. Petersburg Times reports that on his rare time off, Tim works in prison ministries, travels to foreign countries to give his testimony, holds Bible studies and volunteers to help those less fortunate. Tim states, “For me, every day includes four things: God, family, academics, and football, in that order.” Tim Tebow gets it; “HE WAS BORN TO SERVE THE LORD.”

I love the song, “Born to Serve the Lord” by Evangelist Bud Chambers, which has been recorded by several musical groups. It captures the very purpose of life. Here are the lyrics of that God-inspired song:

From the dust of the earth my God created man- His breath made man a living soul; And God so loved the world He gave His only Son, And that is why I love Him so!

My hands were made to help my neighbor; my eyes were made to read God's word. My feet were made to walk in His footsteps; my body is the temple of the Lord.

I was made in His likeness, Created in his image, for I was born to serve the Lord. I will not deny Him; I will always walk beside Him, for I was born to the serve the Lord.

You may not be called to be a missionary, a preacher or a great football player. Maybe God’s plan for your life is ministering to your family. Let God make you the best wife or husband, mother or father the world has ever known. There is nothing more important to God than raising children who love and honor God with their lives and pass that heritage to the next generation. Perhaps you are single and God’s plan for you is to be a Godly employee, a “missionary” in your workplace or a loving friend to someone who feels unloved. If God has called you to sing; sing praises unto Him; write; write something to glorify His Name; pray; pray with fervor for those who don’t know God; if it is to show kindness, you will have plenty of opportunity every day. Whatever plan God has laid down for you from the moment you were formed, embrace it and move into your destiny because “YOU WERE BORN TO SERVE THE LORD!!!”

GOD WANTS YOU TO SUCCEED

God wants you to succeed!!! Many Holy Ghost filled people live their lives in fear that God is just waiting to pull the rug out from under them or slap them upside the head at the slightest provocation. Lip service is given to God’s amazing grace and His infinite mercy but we seem to think those attributes only apply to salvation and do not include our continuing faith journey. Is it because we don’t really know God or don’t believe God?

2 Peter 3:9“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 

If we believe this verse, perhaps we just have a hard time substituting “I” for “any” and “all”.

I am the oldest child in a family of six children. My dad was a hard worker and provided all the necessities of life and as many extras as possible for his family. I enjoyed a wonderful childhood and never felt poor or underprivileged. I always felt loved and had built-in playmates; something was always happening at our house. Many of my friends, however, enjoyed some of the luxuries that I was well aware were not available to “people like us.” My best friend in high school would spend weekends at her cottage in Baraboo, WI and she had a beautiful brick fireplace in her living room. We lived in a 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch, 4 bedrooms, counting the one dad fixed up in the basement. If I ever attained the status of my friend, I thought I would have made it because “people like us” lived in 1200 sq. ft. ranch homes with 1 bathroom and gravel driveways. Many times, I have needed God to reassure me that, because of His grace, I am “one of those people.” God wants ME to succeed!

The book of Exodus relates the saga of the deliverance of the Children of Israel by the hand of God. The Israelites had come to Egypt during the days of Joseph to escape a great famine. They had lived in the land of Goshen for 430 years and were now enslaved to the Egyptians. Their tasks became more and more burdensome until they began to cry unto the Lord for deliverance. God raised up Moses to lead them to freedom and deal with Pharaoh. It was God’s desire to deliver his people then just as it is today. This verse in Exodus illustrates how far God will go to deliver and protect us even when our hearts aren’t exactly true.

Exodus 13:17  “And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.” 

God wanted freedom for His people so badly that he led them in a way that would not tempt them to return to a foreign land and live as slaves. God wanted them to succeed!

You are one of God’s people and He will go to any length necessary for you to be successful in your journey with Him. When He filled you with the Holy Spirit, He endowed you with the necessary power to walk into a life of liberty. If you will follow the path God has laid for you, He will lead you out of the reach of the pull of Egypt and into freedom. You can live a wonderful, fulfilled life today and be assured of eternal life tomorrow. God wants YOU to succeed!