As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.
Genesis 17: 4
According to my concordance, “Abraham” literally means “exalted father.” Yet when when God promised Abram that he would make him the father of nations, I can only imagine what Abram must have thought. He was a faith-filled man. He trusted God. He’d left his home and family to travel where he was told to go, and he’d expectantly waited for he and his wife Sarai, to have children. Years had gone by. The new land, they’d found. But this? Thus just seemed impossible!
Yet his faith prompted him to wait on God, to eagerly anticipate the fulfillment of the promise, even to the extent of becoming circumcised at the age of 99, along with every male in his household, as a sign of the covenant God had made with him.
God’s promise to Abram, now Abraham, wasn’t fulfilled right away. The vision took years before all of the pieces were in place for Isaac to be born. Yet God was at work, fulfilling his promise during all of that time, and Abraham did his best to remain faithful during the wait.
Waiting can be hard. It can feel like inaction, like wasted time. And in a society where we value our To Do lists and calendars, time is not to be wasted lightly.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately feeling like I’m in limbo, uncertain what my next step should be. Knowing that up until this point, I’ve followed God’s leading for me. He gave me a vision years ago of what I would do with my life. Like Abraham, I didn’t believe him at first, but over time it became one of the strongest desires of my heart. So, I embraced the promise and sought His leading. I’ve grown and learned and developed in ways that would prepare me for the time when that promise is fulfilled.
So why now is everything suddenly unclear?
Perhaps it’s because there are details that God is still working together. The time is not yet right. Perhaps there’s more I need to learn. There are still pieces to the puzzle that have not yet been revealed.
My daughter recently got her learner’s permit. The only car we own is a standard. Could she learn to drive more quickly on an automatic? Sure! But she still wouldn’t know how to drive the only car she has access to.
So, she has to wait to get her license because if she showed up today for her driver’s test, there’s no way she’d pass it. She needs to practice, gain familiarity, and develop the necessary skills to be ready to receive her promised license.
It’s the same when we’re writing. So many people take years, even decades to polish their work before it ever sees the light of day. When it’s published, it takes months, sometimes even years, before it receives the recognition it deserves, if it ever does.
Yet for most of us, writing is something we know we’re called to do. The idea of *not* writing is unfathomable. Many times we’ve had to delay taking the time to actually write. Perhaps we’ve raised a family, had a career, or have had other demands on our time that have made it difficult to carve out the necessary time to hone our craft, but here we are now. We are developing the skills necessary to become the best writers we can be.
I don’t know what God’s specific plan is for you. Sometimes I still question the plan he has for me. But what I do know is this… When you seek his leading, in your writing as well as in your life, whole new possibilities open up before you that you might never have seen before because of the myopic viewpoint your life has given you.
So what has God been calling you to do or write?
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