Tag Archives: promises

What’s the Hold Up?

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Connecting Points

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Today’s Topic: Held Up By Promises                                               

Today’s Text:  Psalm 119:116-117 (ESV)  Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope! 117 Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually!

One of the past traditions of our family when the kids were young was that we would spend Thanksgiving at my brother’s house in Chicago. What a riot! Women shopping, men golfing, kids hiding and playing all over the four-story house: great memories.

Every year we would load up the car and head out from the Chippewa Valley on Wednesday afternoon. Without fail, as soon as the Hormel chili can came into view at Beloit, Wisconsin, the traffic would come to a complete stop. It would take us over an hour to travel the next few miles to the first toll booth on the Illinois expressway. The first time we ever made the trip and we got to that spot, I remember saying out loud, “What’s the holdup?”

Sometimes we say that to God. We have heard His promises and expect immediate results. When we don’t get the results when we thought we would, our impatience, generated by our prideful desire to have everything work out our way, makes us question the very nature of the promise. We may even question the integrity of the One making the promise. So instead of being upheld by the promise, we think we are being held up by it.

On Tuesday God designed the last Connecting Points devotional in such a way that it addressed this very issue of being held up in the life of a friend from church. With his permission, I share what God is doing in his heart with you. The background you need to know is this – he and his wife are in the process of adopting a little boy from another country, and while other families doing the same are having their process move forward, my friend’s process is being held up. In fact, they had just received an email from the adoption agency that stated that it could be another few months before they would get to go pick up their son. My friend did not react well to that news, but God worked through it with Him to bring further growth to his faith. Here is how he writes it:

I was thinking over your devotional from yesterday and I find it kind of funny how we can react to “perceived promises”… We had never been given a specific promise of a court date. We were never specifically told that we would travel at the end of January, but rather we were told that we might or could possibly travel AROUND that time. 

My initial reaction yesterday was not good. As I thought about the situation, I got jealous of other’s situations. I felt it was unfair that they had moved along faster than us. I got angry that our agency had been leaving us in the dark. All these things I was feeling put me in a downward spiral of thought.

Thankfully that spiral didn’t last long. As I drove to work yesterday I was praying like crazy that our process would go faster; that the Lord would take away the pain; that things would work out like the “perceived promise” that I had in my mind. 

Surprisingly by the time I got to work I felt significantly better (I say surprisingly because I really wasn’t praying for the right reasons or the right things). I believe, though, that the Holy Spirit was interceding on my behalf AND God was about to reveal a whole lot of truth to me. Once I got to work I actually had a chance to read the email that the adoption agency had sent (previously, my wife had just paraphrased it for me.) The information was the same, but now I saw God’s timing in it. The reason for the delay was the fact that the orphanage was filing for re-licensing with the government. You see, orphanages don’t renew their licenses every year; they renew them every two years. So, the possibility of us “just happening” to be at this specific point in the process at the exact time that they “happen” to have to renew their license, and the fact that our little boy just “happens” to be from this orphanage and not a different one is probably slim at best. Nothing is circumstantial with God.

He then spoke to my heart and reminded me that we are not in this process to bring honor or glory to ourselves, but rather to honor and glorify God. He reminded me of huge hurdles He had cleared for us in the past, and that everything was working according to His plan and His timing.

So why should we have to wait any longer? I do not know… BUT, I do know that whatever the reason is, it is to show the majesty and power of the one true God. It is to honor and glorify Him. And I can rest assured that when He is ready for our little boy to come home, it will be perfect! (Not by my measure of perfection, but rather His.)  

I choose to rest on His promises and not my “perceived promises;” the promise that my life is in the hands of the God of the universe. A promise that will not fail nor fade away. One that is not perceived, but rather guaranteed. I thank the Lord that He is in control and I choose to accept His perfect plan!

There are no hold ups in God’s timing. Instead, He intends that His promises will hold us up! It’s all a matter of perspective. What’s yours?

Pastor John

Pocketful of Promises

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Connecting Points

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Today’s Topic: A Pocketful of Promises                                           

Today’s Text:  Psalm 119:116 (ESV)  Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope!

I have a pocketful of promises. At least I believe they are promises, and because of that I use them. I put coins in a vending machine because of the promise of a thirst-quencher or belly-enhancer. I put green-colored paper into the hands of a cash-register operator in exchange for the product I have determined is essential to my life. I slide a plastic card through an electronic device when I don’t have any green-colored paper and I expect the same result. I pull out a cylindrical device with a clicky top to make a promise to pay later with the promise of a signature. I hand a colored punch card to the clerk who makes a promise with a hole to give me something free later. My pockets are full of promises.

In one pocket of my coat I carry a dozen promises, all attached to a steel ring. One promise opens my office door. One promise opens my house. Other promises open a variety of cabinets and files and doors. When I pull them out of my pocket and insert the appropriate promise into the matching slot, things that had been previously inaccessible are suddenly fully available.

I’m having trouble with one promise in my pocket. It is a small black plastic promise with three buttons on it. Each button is supposed to perform a function on my vehicle. Every morning when I get to the office I exit my car, shut the door, and push the button that promises to lock the doors. Nothing happens. I push the promise again, and nothing happens. I slowly move to a different location on the outside of the vehicle and push the promise again, and maybe, it will work. Some days I just go inside and leave the car unlocked because the promise was never fulfilled. Then there are days like this morning that the promise was fulfilled at the first request.

It can be really embarrassing standing in the parking lot pointing a promise at the car while moving around pushing the button repeatedly. Unfulfilled promises are shameful. They destroy hope. My pocket is full of promises that are consistently fulfilled, but the one promise that isn’t seems to dominate my thoughts and affects the quality of my life (or at least I choose to believe it does).

None of the above is true of God’s promises. Never once has one of His promises failed – at least not from His perspective. From my vantage point things don’t happen like they should. I want to be fulfilled according to my desires. I want to be upheld according to my application of the promise. Therein lies the problem. Putting God’s promises into our context and timeframe is like putting the wrong key into the lock and never gaining access to the previously unavailable. The Psalmist reminds us of this truth with the words, Uphold me according to your promise.

God’s promises are like the coins and currency we carry. Read these encouraging words from Charles Spurgeon:

Nothing pleases our Lord better than to see His promises put in circulation; He loves to see His children bring them up to Him, and say, “Lord, do as Thou hast said.” We glorify God when we plead His promises. Do you think that God will be any the poorer for giving you the riches He has promised? Do you dream that He will be any the less holy for giving holiness to you? Do you imagine He will be any the less pure for washing you from your sins? Our heavenly Banker delights to cash His own notes. Never let the promise rust. Think not that God will be troubled by reminding Him of His promises. He loves to hear the loud outcries of needy souls. It is His delight to bestow favors. He is more ready to hear than you are to ask. The sun is not weary of shining, nor the fountain of flowing. It is God’s nature to keep His promises; therefore go at once to the throne.

Follower of Christ, your pocket is full of promises, and they all fit perfectly into the doorway of the heart of God. All that has been previously inaccessible is now fully available, and never, no never will the promise be unfulfilled. Point the promise directly at God, and push the button. It will open God’s heart every time.

Pastor John