Then the Word of the Lord came to him:
“... a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”
He took him outside and said,
“Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.”
Then he said to him,
“So shall your offspring be.”
Genesis 15:4-5
Right before God promised him this, Abram asked the Lord why He had left him without children. He was mad that God hadn't given him any sons or daughters to look after and to care for. He didn't understand why God had blessed others with children and, seemingly, skipped over him. And then God told Abram His Plan. He revealed to him His intentions. He was going to give Abram a son, just not when he expected it. God was going to do what He had planned for Abram, but in His own time.
Now, when you read this passage, you probably automatically think oh, God was going to give Abram a son really soon. Well, it turns out that that was not the case. Abram actually had to wait twenty-five years. That's a really long time to wait to have a kid, especially since Abram was seventy-five when God promised him this.
I don't know about you, but I would have gotten impatient pretty soon. Apparently, Abram had the same problem. After eleven years, he decided that maybe God needed some help, and he had a child (whom he called Ishmael) with a servant named Hagar.
Wait a second – Abram thought that God needed help? But God can do anything! Abram's mindset in doing this was the following: “God promised me that He would give me a son, but it is still just my wife and I! Why hasn't God fulfilled His promise to me?” Abram got impatient, which caused him to make a very unwise decision.
Now you see how important patience is on a day-to-day basis. But why didn't God give Abram the child that He had promised him? If God is perfect, why didn't He fulfill His promise?
It turns out that He did, just not when Abram expected it. Fourteen years after Hagar had Ishmael, God blessed Abram and his wife with a son named Isaac. You see, God gave him just what He had promised to give him, just not in Abram's timing. God did it when He said it was best, not when Abram said it was. God has perfect timing, but it is sometimes hard to see that. Just like Abram, we get impatient and wish that God would do what He says He will do now. But we've got to learn to trust Him. We need to remember that He knows the best time for everything, and not us. We have to keep in mind that He has everything all planned out, from what you are going to eat for lunch today to how many people are going to church on Sunday to who is going to heaven and hell. God knows what is going to happen, so He also knows when it should happen.
Another mistake that Abram made in this Biblical passage was not trusting God's Plan. Like I said before, the Lord has everything planned out, even though we don't. He created everything, so he should know what is going to happen when, where, why, and how. Abram didn't trust His Plan, and that was a big problem.
Abram thought that it was God's Plan to give him children, and he spent much of his life questioning why God had not. Finally, God told him that He would bless him with a son. Imagine how happy Abram must have been. He had lived seventy-five years without children, which must have been very difficult. But that was finally changing! God had promised him a son, so that meant for sure that he would get one.
Unfortunately, as the years went by, this conviction was weakened with doubts. I'm sure that Abram's head was full of “Why hasn't God fulfilled His promise yet?” and “If God had meant what He said I would have a son by now,” and “Maybe God was never actually going to give me a son. Maybe that promise was just a way to stop my complaining.” Abram started trusting less and less in God's Plan.
Finally he decided that it was time to act. He decided that if he wanted something done, he had to do it himself. So he had a child that was not the promised child with a woman who was not his wife. Abram became so impatient that he committed adultery, a sin he knew was wrong.
Twenty-five years later, Abram realized what he had done. He had not trusted that God would give him a child, but had decided that it would be better to do it himself. If Abram had been more patient and trusting with God, he would have not sinned. He had been wrong.
You can see from this story the value of trusting God's Plan. Abram did not trust God to do what He said He would do. When He took to long, Abram started to think that the Lord would not fulfill His Promise at all. Even after God showed him what He was planning, Abram still did not trust Him, and that was a big mistake.
Of course, God knew that Abram would grow impatient and do something that he should not do. Yet He did not interfere. Why do you think that is? Well, one reason He had for it was to teach Abram (and us) to trust His Plan and His Timing, as I have just show you. But another reason was to teach us humility.
You see, after a while, Abram thought that God was taking to long, and therefore could not do what He had promised. Abram though that he could do it better than the Lord. In this passage, we see that Abram was proud of himself. We are all proud sometimes, I don't mean the “my friend got an A+ in math” kind of proud; I'm talking about the “I got an A+ and she got a C, I'm so much better than her” kind of proud. We are proud of our abilities, of our talents, of what we can do. God does not want us to think these things. When those kinds of thoughts start to creep into your head, remember this: it wasn't you; it was God. You got an A+ because God gave you a good understanding of that subject. She got a C because God decided to give her skill in other areas. Maybe you made the soccer team and he didn't; so what? God might have given him talent in another sport that you're terrible at.
The point I'm trying to get across here is that God has a Plan, and therefore knows what should happen and at what time. He knows what is happening in your life, and in everyone else's lives also. He has a perfect Plan and perfect timing. He also has a reason for everything he does, so don't be proud next time someone gets a worse grade than you do, or you beat someone at a sport. God gave you talents, and He gave them talents too, even if they aren't the same ones as yours.
Next time you think that you know what's best instead of God, or you feel pride creeping up on you, ask the Lord to humble you and to remind you that He is the one with the Plan for the world, and not you.
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