What happens when YOU try to MAKE a miracle happen
Let all things be done decently and in order. ---I Corinthians 14:40 (NKJV)
Be God or let God.---Author Unknown
PLEASE CATCH THIS MESSAGE. The marriage blog (http://sohowdidyouknow.blogspot.com), which is only a little over a week old and already has over 30 testimonies on it, has been triggering A LOT in people---including myself. It's so I never would have guessed it to be this way interesting how, although I will be 35 in June, I still have MANY single friends. Back at 25, I would have thought virtually everyone would be at least on or out of (I'm just being real) their first marriage. And here...we sit. Waiting on God...or at least trying to.
Well, as I was reading some of the advice to singles, I decided to pray for the ones in my personal/intimate/heart space. During a certain prayer, specific people started to come to mind. And so did a particular story. That of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael.
After these things happened, the Lord spoke his word to Abram in a vision: 'Abram, don't be afraid. I will defend you, and I will give you a great reward.'
But Abram said, 'Lord God, what can you give me? I have no son, so my slave Eliezer from Damascus will get everything I own after I die.' Abram said, 'Look, you have given me no son, so a slave born in my house will inherit everything I have.'
Then the Lord spoke his word to Abram: 'He will not be the one to inherit what you have. You will have a son of your own who will inherit what you have.'
Then God led Abram outside and said, 'Look at the sky. There are so many stars you cannot count them. Your descendants also will be too many to count.'
Abram believed the Lord. And the Lord accepted Abram's faith, and that faith made him right with God.---Genesis 15:1-6 (NCV)
There are two things that stood out to me here. One, is the last verse. It was in God accepting Abram's faith (...the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen-Hebrews 11:1) that he was made right with God. Psalm 37:4 tells us that if we delight in the Lord, he will give us our heart's desires. Believing that promise is a huge component in pleasing God. Until now, I used to always think that pleasing God...making him delighted in me, was more deed-than-belief-oriented, but now I understand just how much the two work together. If you believe, you will obey. (Jeremiah 42:6) You obey because you believe. (Mark 9:23) But the other thing that caught me was what the Holy Spirit (Luke 12:12) said to me after reading the story in its entirety:
Oh, you can have more than baby Ishmaels...and a lot of people do.
Whew! I knew EXACTLY what he meant. Let the (revelation) games begin.
There are certain things that God has promised me...I know that he has promised me (2 Corinthians 1:20), but being the control freak (in recovery) that I am, I am so tempted to try and make it happen---myself. I liken it to the child who is told that they can have a cookie after dinner and because they want it right away (Psalm 46:10), they try and sneak a cookie while their mom is making dinner, instead. MOM knows it's best to wait until after your meal. MOM knows that eating it before you are ready could possibly make you sick. And the greater point? Sneaking/taking something that MOM told you not to have (yet) usually gets you into trouble...it usually ends up cursing you rather than blessing you. Yes, THE VERY THING THAT COULD BLESS YOU, AT THE WRONG TIME OR WITH THE WRONG MOTIVES, CAN CURSE YOU.
Some people have Ishmael marriages.
Some people have Ishmael jobs.
Some people have Ishmael items (homes, cars, jewelry, clothes...etc.)
All because God told them they could have something, but because they didn't want to wait and they took matters into their own hands...they created a substitute blessing. AN ISHMAEL BLESSING.
Sarai, Abram's wife, had no children, but she had a slave girl from Egypt named Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, 'Look, the Lord has not allowed me to have children, so have s*xual relations with my slave girl. If she has a child, maybe I can have my own family through her.'
Abram did what Sarai said. It was after he had lived ten years in Canaan that Sarai gave Hagar to her husband Abram. (Hagar was her slave girl from Egypt.)
Abram had s*xual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar learned she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress Sarai badly. Then Sarai said to Abram, 'This is your fault. I gave my slave girl to you, and when she became pregnant, she began to treat me badly. Let the Lord decide who is rightyou or me.'
But Abram said to Sarai, 'You are Hagar's mistress. Do anything you want to her.' Then Sarai was hard on Hagar, and Hagar ran away.
The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the desert, by the road to Shur. The angel said, 'Hagar, Sarai's slave girl, where have you come from? Where are you going?'
Hagar answered, 'I am running away from my mistress Sarai.'
The angel of the Lord said to her, 'Go home to your mistress and obey her.' The angel also said, 'I will give you so many descendants they cannot be counted.'
The angel added, 'You are now pregnant, and you will have a son. You will name him Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your cries. Ishmael will be like a wild donkey. He will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him. He will attack all his brothers."
Oh, there are A TON of lessons that can be taught/learned from this story (A TON), but the two points (in these verses) that I am being led to point out are in bold:
When God tells YOU something, you have to stand (unwaveringly) on it. When Christ was on the Earth, he told us that the greatest commandment was that we should love the Lord with ALL of our heart, mind and strength. (Mark 12:30) THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS (no matter what the relationship) TO THIS RULE. Something that one of my very happily married friends told me is that one of the greatest temptations a wife has is to not make your husband a god. She's not the only one who believes that. Paul implied the same thing...that it takes GREAT MATURITY (Matthew 19-Message) to balance your love for God with your submission to your mate. (I Corinthians 7) But we see in this biblical story what happens when you don't. GOD TOLD ABRAM that he would have a son. In her impatience (and ignorance) SARAI TOLD ABRAM to make a son with one of her slave girls. As a result of putting someone before God (Exodus 20:3), chaos ensued. There are some people RIGHT NOW who know what God has told them to do (or not do)...what they can have (or not have) and they are moving outside of his directions (2 Thessalonians 3:5)...they are compromising because of the pressure from sources other than God. 2 Corinthians 7:1 (NKJV) says, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Galatians 5:16 tells us that when we walk (proceed by steps) in the Spirit, we will not fulfill (satisfy) the lust of the flesh. I wonder how many of us have thought about how our flesh can intercept or at the very least, highly-affect, our promises. God, for instance, may have promised you more money (Proverbs 14:24), but how/when/where you go about getting it can put the magnitude of his intention for your blessing into jeopardy. He may have said that you will birth a child, but the timing (physically, financially, relationally) can be crucial to what he's trying to accomplish through your seed. Something that God has been repeating to me over and over is that HE IS A SPIRIT. The promises that he gives are from the Spirit. Flesh does not create...it imitates...it duplicates, but without the Lord, WE CAN DO NOTHING. (John 15:5) God is the Creator. (Genesis 1:1) If we want something from him...if we desire the kind of blessings that he has in store, we have to get our flesh (carnal nature, sensual appetites) off of it! THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH LUSTS AGAINST ONE ANOTHER. (Galatians 5:17) They cannot walk in agreement. (Amos 3:3) God told you that you would be a CEO (spirit) and so you go lying on your current boss thinking it will get you a faster promotion (flesh). Even if you do get the gig, it won't bless you...fulfill you...sustain you the way it would have had you let God promote you. (Ecclesiastes 3:14) If you don't believe me...just ask Abraham. Which brings me to my second point.
Sometimes your effort will get you something...perhaps even something similar, but it will not be what you wanted in the way you really wanted it. Abram did what his wife told him to do (already out of order-Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18) and he did get a son. But do you see what the angel said his son was going to be like? A wild donkey (A...DONKEY!!!) that everyone was going to be against; one who would attack his brothers. HE WAS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM. Family, we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). That makes us powerful specimens. There are some things that we have a natural ability to do, but to have those things anointed by God, we need his complete and total approval and assistance. (2 Timothy 2:15) God told Abram he would have a son. Abram took it upon himself to create one. God allowed science, choice and circumstance to have its way. Two people (man and woman) have s*x? There's a great chance that eventually the man will get the woman pregnant. GOD GAVE US THAT ABILITY. But when it is in the covenant of marriage...when the bed is undefiled (Hebrews 13:4)...when you create from a PURE (untainted with evil; innocent; free of or without guilt) place, a wonderful thing is manifested. All children are a blessing....all are miracles, but God wants us to gain everything we have under his covering of obedience---to have things manifest in his will...his timing...his purpose. When we obey, there is not the same kind of sacrifice/suffering that comes like when we don't. (I Samuel 15:22)
Oh, please believe this really hit home with me...especially concerning one area that I have been praying about/over. I believe God will grant it, but I know there are some things that I must get in order, first. (A message on what it means to be a woman of favor will be coming very shortly!) Could I go out now and, in my own power, try and make it happen? Oh, I'm sure that I can. But I started the marriage blog because I have heard enough tales of people who are married to spouses who act like wild donkeys that no one can get along with...whose own brothers even turned against them. A child is a child. But the kind of child Ishmael was is very different from the kind of child that Isaac was. A marriage is a marriage...a job is a job...a house is a house...oh, but the kind of marriage, job or house we get when we WAIT ON GOD is the one that we want. That's the one that God believes that we deserve...when we are obedient to him.
This week, take some time the reflect on what God has promised you. Now, are you waiting on God...no matter how it may appear to you right now? Or are you taking the Sarai approach by trying to make a miracle happen? If it's the latter (as if Abram's story is not enough), let me just show you the definitions of two main words in this message:
Promise: a declaration that something will or will not be done, given, etc., by one; an express assurance on which expectation is to be based; indication of what may be expected; to afford reason to expect; to cause hope or assurance of
Wait: to remain inactive or in a state of repose, as until something expected happens; to be available or in readiness; to look forward to eagerly; to continue as one is in expectation of; await
Psalm 84:11 (NKJV) says:
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly. The Amplified?
For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows [present] grace and favor and [future] glory (honor, splendor, and heavenly bliss)! No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly. Do you see how that all is a process? He is our shield...he gives grace...and he withholds no good thing.
Withhold: to refrain from giving or granting
Did you see that? God does not refrain from giving or granting anything GOOD (now some of you may need to ask if what you want is actually good for you...whole 'nother message!). If we don't have the goods, it's not because he's withholding us...it's because he's preparing us. To get anything God-worthy, we must go through a phase/stage of preparation (Ecclesiastes 3, Acts 1:7-Message). In the meantime, if we remain spiritually alert/aware, he will shield us from anything that we try and lure us away. He will even give us the grace for when that anything is us (our actions, our fears, our attitudes).
God, the Spirit in which ALL THINGS are possible (Matthew 19:26), for him, it is impossible to lie. (Hebrews 6:18) Amazing, ain't it that with all of the things that he can do, lying isn't one of them? And so, we must trust him. (Proverbs 30:5); that if he said it, it is so...that if we don't have it in the flesh that doesn't mean it is not on its way in the spirit.
I've had enough Ishmael blessings.
The miracle...the blessing...the peace/joy/happiness of Isaac...whenever he comes, because God said he would, will suit me just fine....finally.
Shellie R. Warren/2009
To be truly great, one has to stand with people...not above them."-Charles de Montesquieu
"When your heart breaks over what it has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left."-Sufi Epigram
"Friendship isn't a big thing---it's a million little things."-Unknown
http://sohowdidyouknow.blogspot.com/
Posted By: The SISTAHS Ministry
Monday, February 2nd 2009 at 8:57AM
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