During the Delay

Today in church, Pastor Jeff talked about the rainbow being a reminder of the promises of God...

He gave a few examples of things that God promised in the Bible for all believers.

Then he talked about the things that God has promised to us personally...

I don't know if God has promised you anything personally, but there are dreams in my heart that I just know are supposed to happen...and they haven't.

And these are not the kind of "I had too much pizza late last night" dreams...

These are real dreams, desires, visions that we know are from God.

They are too big to be just made up on my own because they are way bigger than I could imagine. They are the kinds of things that I don't want share with just anyone because I don't want to be laughed at...or given the opportunity to be given more fuel for my doubts. Some of these I've only shared with Lee...

And I cannot make these things happen on my own either.

The only way is if God makes them happen.

And they haven't happened yet.

I mean, some of these dreams are going on 10 or more years now.

What? 10 years? Then it's never going to happen, right?

Wrong.

Pastor Jeff pointed out that there may be a whole season of life that takes place while a promise is delayed.

I know that there are many stories in the Bible of people who were promised something...and for some of them, it took years...like a lot of years...

For Hannah, she wanted a son. She promised she would give her son to God if He would at least let her have a baby. Not long after she was promised that she would have a son, she got pregnant.  And she fulfilled her part of the deal by bringing Samuel to live at the temple when he was just a very little boy.

For the people of Israel, they traveled in the desert with Moses for 40 years before they reached the land that God had promised to them.

For Anna, in the New Testament, she was promised that she would see the Messiah before she died. She was a widow...and it doesn't say how long she waited for this promise...but it says that she was old when this happened.

Story after story, God's promises are true.

When I'm at a place where it seems like these dreams will never happen, I just have to remind myself of the rainbow. That means God is good for it. I just need to trust Him during the delay. Just keep looking at those rainbows.