“It May Get Worse Before It Gets Better”

“¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ¹³ Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”  Genesis 15:12-16

Abram, later named Abraham is a revered man in the Judeo-Christian faiths. He received and believed some pretty significant promises from the Lord. He remained faithful to trust God even though many of those promises did not (as he was told by God in our scripture passage above) come to pass in his lifetime. Many times we are content to receive the promises of God if we can be assured to see them come to pass in the next week or two or at least before the end of the year! God’s timetable is so much different. We want instant gratification and he wants our life transformed. Would you be as committed to serve and follow Christ if the rewards are delayed and the path to them is strewn with a few trials, a few tribulations and a few tests? What if you sew and somebody else reaps? Is that o.k. with you? If it is, you are on the right path but if it is not, then ask God to recalibrate your walk and your motives. Spend some time with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. There, and for the next day following, you will find out what he endured so that you might reap the benefit. There you can learn some powerful lessons on surrendering to the Father’s will and not your own. You will be rewarded but perhaps it comes after some other people reap some benefits because of your sacrifice.