Hurry up ... Wait.
I have always hated to wait.
As a child, waiting for my parents to load the car for a family trip (anywhere) felt eternal. And then, I had to wait, squashed between my two older brothers, as we crossed Michigan. A three-hour drive from Detroit to Grand Rapids, MI, to visit my grandmother--another infinite span of time.
Even with all the waiting, I always knew there was a promise of something amazing on the other end.
I imagine a level of distrust would fester, and by adulthood I might believe promises to be wishful thinking.
When a pattern is well-established, it is difficult to believe anything different.
Children born into poverty may struggle with any hope that affluence can be part of their story. Those raised in wealth could never imagine the feeling of hunger or whether their clothes are well-tailored and clean.
I heard a story several years ago. The pastor shared about orphan children who were taken into an orphanage. Many of them would cry at night, fearful of sleep because they had no idea whether they'd have another meal when they woke or be back on the street. One of the workers realized this and began to fasten a slice of bread to their hands--a physical reminder that they would always have another meal. The children were able to sleep after that.
The children had legitimate fears. To tell them otherwise wouldn't calm them. They needed something to hold on to. Literally.
As children of God, it's no different. In the beginning of our journey with Him, there's the initial buoyancy of our spirits that is exciting and new. Prayers get answered. Peace like we've never known comes.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites were instructed to take large stones and pile them up in specified places, "that this may be a sign to you. When your children ask in time to come, 'What do those stones mean to you?' then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD ... So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever" (Joshua 4:6-7 ESV).
Today, journals often are filled with emotional highs and lows, gains and losses, our deepest fears, our triumphs, dreams, hopes, and sometimes our failures. For many, journals also highlight the ways God has blessed, encouraged, broken through, or broken down impossible walls, ways we see Him working in our lives in the season we're writing.
These, friends, are our "stones of remembrance" or "slice of bread". We can look back into our own lives and recount the times the Lord has provided financially, given strength when we felt weak, healed our brokenness, and brought us peace we couldn't explain. Because when the wait is long, and we begin to wonder if it was just wishful thinking, we need reminders.
I would never discount the importance of Scripture. It is the best-documented journey of a nation's history and God's faithfulness we will ever encounter. And it applies to our lives as well. We can hold fast to the promises of God because we have been adopted into the family of God (Ephesians 1:5).
We don't know when the promise will be fulfilled. We don't know how. But we can be confident that He will do what He said He would do. The wait period might not look (or feel) like blessing.
I'm pretty certain the Israelites didn't see slavery in Egypt as a blessing, but rather that God had forgotten them. But if we look back to God's interaction with Abram, "Then He said to Abram: 'Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years'" (Genesis 15:13 NKJV).
I know, not a word I want to hear. But let's read on:
And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions" (Genesis 15:14 NKJV).
By the end of Genesis, we read that Abram had a son called Isaac, whose son Jacob had 12 sons. Of these sons, one--Joseph--was sold into slavery to Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt (Genesis 37:25-28). In Egypt, Joseph's integrity was tested; he was imprisoned, but eventually he was elevated to second in command, only to Pharaoh, because of his ability to interpret dreams. It was the fulfillment of these dreams that brought Joseph's brothers to Egypt for food during a 7-year famine. And before Genesis closes its book, Joseph's brothers and father, with all their family and livestock, move to the best part of the land--Goshen. The number of Jacob's household to move to Egypt was 70 (Genesis 46:27).
When we begin the next book, Exodus, it isn't long before we can see the Egyptians turning on the Israelites.
"And Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, "Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land" (Exodus 1:7-10 NKJV).
Did you see that? Israel was more and mightier than the Egyptians, and this was a problem.
Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens ... But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they (Egypt) were in dread of the children of Israel. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage--in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor (Exodus 1:11-14 NKJV).
I've always found it interesting that a people group, intimidated by another's size and strength, can enslave the latter. But the Egyptians did. And 400 years into this, the Lord raises up a prince, Moses--a Jewish man fished out of the Nile as an infant by Pharaoh's daughter and raised in the palace. (For the sake of time, we will forego telling his story. But I encourage you, go read it.)
By the time Exodus closes, the Egyptians let the Israelites go, carrying with them the wealth of their captors. Exodus 12 reports, "Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children" (Exodus 12:37). Scholars estimate this number to be much larger, as it only counted the men. When factoring in the women and children, the estimation is about 2-million people.
I can't, with proof, state that the 400 years were an incubation period for a nation to be grown. But the end result was indeed a nation, large enough and mighty enough to occupy a land of its own.
So, we look to the Scripture. We look to the Lord. We take our stones of remembrance and trust the Lord has already won the victory for us.
As one who has waited more than she desires, and is still waiting on some fronts, I can promise you, God is faithful.
We can count on Him! And the end result is worth the wait.
Until next time, I will leave you with these Scriptures:
The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9 ESV)
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV).
But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31 NKJV).
