Redefine

God gives the promise. We receive it with enthusiasm, we meditate upon it, we “can’t wait” until we see it materialize.

Then, everything goes haywire. It doesn’t happen right away. We doubt God, we began to think it is never going to happen, we give up on it, and maybe we develop a sour attitude toward God because we think He failed us and He isn’t reliable.

. . . Or we continue to believe when nothing we see gives evidence of the promise.

Does this sound familiar?

The promises of God are tested in our lives . . . always!

Joseph has this grandiose dream about his brothers bowing down to him. Then, they sell him into slavery, he is falsely accused of rape by his boss’ wife, and he ends up in prison . . . where he remains for 13 years.

Abraham and Sarah are promised a son. Then, several years pass and, no son! Sarah decides they must help God with His promise and she asks Abraham to have relations with her servant to produce the son. That son becomes a race of people who oppose Israel to this day.

Moses becomes obsessed with his Jewish heritage and begins to visit his people in their place of slavery. He sees an Egyptian taskmaster abusing his Israelite brother. In a fit of rage he kills the Egyptian and buries him in the sand. Because of his crime, he has to flee Egypt, going to the back side of the desert where he tends sheep for 40 years. Moses thinks he has blown it permanently, and that God can no longer use him.

Does this sound at all familiar? Did you start out with an abundance of hope and enthusiasm, only to have everything go south?

Two things can happen here:

1. We get disillusioned, the devil convinces us that “God did not say,” that we were just imagining the promise, that we were just buzzed up from too much pizza the night before. We take a different path in life and never “collect” on the promise. This is tragic. It is like having a totally good bank check that we never cash.
2. We hold to the promise, never letting go no matter how bad it gets. We remind God of the promise and continually “bug” Him, asking Him, “When God, when? I’m still waiting for You to come through.” God being who He is sometimes brings the promise to fulfillment, even when we have given up on it, thinking it is too late, that the promise can never happen.

I remember the song we used to sing in youth group when I was a teen-ager.

Got any rivers you think are uncrossable?

Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through?

God specializes in things thought impossible . . .

Sometimes we stray far off the course. We forget God’s promises. We forget that He has charted a way for us from before we were born. Disillusionment causes us to drift, to go wherever the wind blows us. We try to keep our minds occupied in order take away some of the sting of disappointment.

Well, in the big picture we need to remember that God is faithful.

God is not a man, that he should lie,

Or the son of man, that he should change his mind.

Has he said, and will he not do it?

Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Numbers 23:19 (ESV)

Sometimes we need to realign, rethink, re-evaluate, refocus, get back on the road again and steer a straight course.

How can we do that?

To those of you who think it’s too late, Joel 2:25 says, “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten . . .”

I have a friend in Nashville who has had his dreams dashed many times. He always gets back on his feet to push forward, creating new dreams, seeing new accomplishments materialize through hard work, tenacity and faith that refuses to give up.

“It’s never too late,” he has said to me on many occasions.

So how do we get back on the road of God’s great plan for us?

Firstly, we need to go back and familiarize ourselves with the promise or promises.

I have journaled for more than 30 years, journaling is writing down an account of your journey with God. It includes what happened in your day, what God did, how He intervened, and what He said to you when you were in the quite place before Him.

I find that going back and reading my journals are always a great help because I read what He said to me, sometimes years before, and I see how He was good on His promise. Secondly, I read things that He promised that have not yet happened, and it sharpens my steadfastness to stay the course and to look ahead with anticipation to what He will do.

If you are not journaling, I strongly urge you to start. Along the way you will find journaling priceless to your Christian walk.

Secondly, sharpen your practices, what you do to grow and maintain your relationship with the Lord. Often the thing or things God promised are dependent on you coming to a level of maturity to where you can handle them. It may surprise you, that if God gave you what He promised before you have reached the proper level of maturity, the good thing might end up in a train wreck.

That’s why there is an appointed time, or in common language, a deliver date for every promise God has made to you.

The entire point of Peter Haas’ book, Broken Escalators, is that if promotions seems to be delayed in your life, it is because you have not yet reached the maturity level to handle the good thing He wants to give you.

The big picture is all good. Keep thanking God for all the good things He has given you. Review and reacquaint yourself with the promises He has made to you. Do your part, be diligent to obey Him and serve Him with all your strength and be confident that every promise God has made to you, He will surely deliver.

To do these things is to redefine your life.

. . . And redefining your life, is how you stay one step ahead in your Christian walk.

Photo designed and taken by Lorraine