Hoping...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
I actually made it to staff prayer on Tuesday, and I found myself reading Romans 4.  I've been ruminating on this little phrase ever since:

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became...  (Rom 4:18a)

That little piece of a verse seemed to jump right off the page at me, and I felt a nudge to consider the things that are in my life now that, to all appearances, are hopeless.

Some of them I do believe I have even given up on.  Hopeless.

When it truth, those things are not hopeless...they are just situations that are totally beyond my control.  If there is going to be any change, it is God who will do it.  There is no point in me fretting over them; if they are important in God's plan, He will take care of it.  If any of those things are not part of His plan, why then, I really shouldn't want it anyway.   So how do I hope...how do I believe...how do I put it into action?

Tenish years after the original promise, Abram still didn't have a son and he made his servant Eliezer his legal heir.   He had structured his life as if God would not keep his promise...yet Romans tells us that Abraham hoped when it didn't make sense to hope.

What is the evidence that Abram hoped against all hope?

He reminded God of the promise... You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir (Gen. 15:3).  While arranging his life in a practical manner, Abram had not forgotten the promise God made to him.

At that moment, God didn't do anything towards fulfilling the promise.  But He reaffirmed it with a covenant. 

And Abram believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6)

Then he turned right around and fathered Ishmael.

Ishmael wasn't a result of a lack of faith...Ishmael was a result of wrong thinking.  Abram believed God would give him a son, but he didn't expect it to happen in a supernatural way.  So the family...and it was the whole family...came up with the way that they could create the opportunity for God to fulfill his promise.  It was years and years before they found out they'd messed it up...and the way they found out was that God kept his promise according to His plan.  So they had to deal with the consequences of their wrong thinking...just as Isaac has had to deal with Ishmael ever since.

I have to be very, very careful that I don't confuse reminding God of the promise with doing something to cause the promise to come about.  But neither do I want to throw away all hope...even if it means I need to order my life just as if that promise will never come to pass.   If I make the servant my heir, I at least will not be attempting to create the answer myself.

Maybe I should go back and re-read those posts on patience...