REPOST FROM FEB 2010
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.
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