JUST BELIEVE: Part 1

I am trying to find my footing where believing in God’s promises is concerned. Nana shared a video with me of a man whom God showed his daughter when he was 15 years old. After getting married and trying to conceive (and failing) the couple began to wonder and question the promise God gave to them. Long story short, it turns out the daughter that God showed them was a daughter they adopted.

It was a beautiful story, it made me tear up; it was admirable how they hung on to God’s promise even in the midst of all that disappointment. After I watched the video, I thought to myself: what a beautiful, but depressing story. God gave this guy a promise and the guy and his wife interpreted the promise one way but God fulfilled it in a different way. Dare I say, he fulfilled it in a way that was (in my opinion) a bit unsatisfactory. God did fulfill his promise: that he’d have a daughter named Chloe, with olive skin, but that daughter was not the fruit of his own body. Does the child make it less theirs because it was through another woman? Nope. Perhaps that is something to explore in a different post.  But this story made me realize something. I realize that sometimes God’s promises are almost allegorical. They go beyond the obvious words that he gives you. In the case of the video, this man was given a vision of his daughter, and the name of the child; but it turns out this child was one they would adopt. Obviously there is a tinge of disappointment there. I assume God didn’t tell him, “the fruit of your womb will produce this beautiful child named Chloe.” The man and his wife read INTO what God’s promise was, rather than reading out of it.

And perhaps that is why we sometimes experience disappointment with God. We read into what he says. In our excitement, and lack of understanding, we forget to look at the fine print so to speak. God may say he will give you wealth. But nowhere in that did he say you won’t have to toil or labour for it. Perhaps you won’t have to. Or you may have to put in 25 years of sacrifice before you live in that mansion, with your 10-car garage.  I feel like I’m going to have to go through God’s promises to me with a fine tooth comb, just so I can manage my expectations and limit the hurt and disappointment.  I don’t know if it’s ok to think and feel this way. I have experienced something immensely disappointing in my life that I am still trying to get over almost 3 years later now. I know what it’s like to experience disappointment over something that you desperately want. But after watching that video I felt that as Christians we shouldn’t read into what God says. Our hopes and expectations can often be the reason we end up so dissatisfied with God because we think he should have done something right now that he never promised to do “right now”. He just said he would do it[& has done it], but he never said when you would see the manifestation of it. And that’s frustrating in itself.  But perhaps we need to start understanding who God is and that God is a God of his word. Examine his word; don’t add your own interpretation, don’t add your own time, your own season, your own methods into the process. The best we should do is expect for it to be done. Whether tomorrow or 30 years from now, but expect for it to be done.

So maybe he has promised you a spouse, a ministry, a certain career, healing, whatever it is. I think all we are supposed to do is believe it will happen and not tarnish that belief or inflate that belief with an assumption or a time frame. It’s challenging not to set these deadlines for God, especially when you need an answer to the problem right now, and you need a breakthrough right now. And oh-my-god- everyone and their dog is telling you to have faith and pray, and fast, and speak positive because your prayer is stuck in first, second, and third heaven, and this is your year! But maybe it’s time to just believe the word as it is given to you. Don’t read into it. You already know what outcome would make you happy.  I’m not saying don’t have an expectation. I am saying expect the word to come to pass, not that it comes to pass according to you.

Below is about the video about Chole.

For the Sake of His Love