Trust in the Lord (Part 2)

As I wrote in last week's post, we are to trust in God. I believe that with all my heart. Sometimes trusting him seems so easy ... other times it can seem so hard. In fact, there have been times in my life where it seemed to me that God was even deliberately making it hard. So let me share with you a lesson I learned a couple of years ago about trust and faith.

I was reading through the book of Genesis and came to the story of Abraham. As I was reading a story that was very familiar to me, I came across something that struck me as odd. When we first meet the man named Abram, God promises him that He will make of him a great nation. At the time of this promise, Abram was 75 years old.

The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran.

But as soon as this promise is made, 10 years go by without any sign of the promise being fulfilled. At this point, Abram gets antsy and tries to fulfill the promise himself through his wife's maidservant Hagar.

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.

Abram is 86 years old when Hagar gives birth to Ishmael. After that, the Bible is strangely silent. As far as we know, the next 13 years go by with nothing ... no sign .. no voice ... nothing. God finally shows up when Abram is 99 years old and fulfills the promise within a year.

Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what He had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

So if you do the math, Abraham had to wait 25 years for the word that God had given him to come to pass. But at least now the promise is fulfilled and Isaac his son is born. Now God can really start to work and build up this family. But here's where the oddest thing occurs. Look what happens to Isaac:

And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to be his wife. And Isaac pleaded with the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD granted his plea, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was 60 years old when she bare them.

As you read this story you can't help but be struck by the irony. God promised to make a great nation out of Abraham, then his wife is barren. After waiting 25 years for the son they've always wanted, now that very same son has to wait another 20 years for his own barren wife to conceive. And here's what we forget ... the bible says that Abraham lived to be 175 years old ... so he was still alive while his son Isaac was going through this. He was 140 when Isaac got married and 160 when the twins were finally born.

Now as if it wasn't enough that both Abraham and Isaac had barren wives, the same thing happens to Isaac's son, Jacob. He marries Rachel and she is barren.

Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, "God has taken away my disgrace." She named him Joseph, and said, "May the LORD add to me another son."

Three generations ... three barren women. What kind of game was God playing? What exactly did he want? What God wanted was faith, and that is the lesson that Abraham learned through all the years of waiting. He learned to believe when there was no reason left to believe. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel ... they all experienced the promise of God followed by dark and lonely times of just waiting. Empty time that only faith can fill. The Bible uses the phrase "by faith" to describe what they went through.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from which they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly country: therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he has prepared for them a city.

So what lesson did I learn? When I had read that story before, I always focused on the high points ... the times when God was talking, moving or acting. But this time I really saw the "silent" years and what those years really meant in the lives of these great men and women of God. I've experienced those same times in my life, times when He seemed a million miles away. But as I look back over those periods I can see now that those are the times when I really learned to trust in Him, to believe when there didn't seem to be a reason to believe. Those are the times when real, enduring faith is born.