Tag: hope

Out of the Wilderness of 2024

By Ife J. Ibitayo

I flew back to Los Angeles just in time for New Year’s. I’d expected my week to be a fun-filled opportunity to celebrate the coming of 2025. Instead, it was eerily quiet. Los Angeles empties out in December with flocks of transplants flying home for the holidays. As I drove through the deserted streets of Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve, 2025 seemed to approach with barely a whisper, as if it was stuck under the thumb of a 2024 that was determined to overstay its welcome.

Or maybe that impression was just a reflection of my own heart. As others rang in new opportunities, I stared at the same old losses. 2024 was the year I lost my company, my health, and my confidence. As I grappled with how to reframe my last year and look forward to the next, the story of Moses came to mind.

Into the Wilderness

When I think of Moses, the images that come to my mind are the man who defeated Pharaoh, parted the Red Sea, and led the Israelites to the edge of the Promised Land. But Moses’s journey did not begin with leadership and victory but murder and retreat.

Moses grew up in the lavish splendor of Pharaoh’s household, while the rest of the Israelites lived under the Egyptians’ thumb in harsh slavery. But after several years, the sight of one of Moses’ brethren being abused by an Egyptian taskmaster triggered his indignation, and he could no longer turn a blind eye to their suffering. That same day he assassinated the Egyptian and literally buried the evidence (Exodus 2:11-12). But his actions earned him no goodwill with his blood family and destroyed his relationship with his adopted father. With nowhere left to turn, Moses fled into the wilderness.

Where is the Wilderness?

The wilderness is the place many of us will find ourselves after we make a mistake. It is the place we flee to when we’ve lost our sense of identity, which in Moses’ case was his status as son of the Egyptian king. This truth is exemplified by Moses naming his first son Gershom—meaning foreigner in Hebrew—and lamenting that he was a “foreigner in a foreign land” (Exodus 2:22).

The wilderness takes many forms. It can be a new environment—such as a new city, company, or commitment—that robs us of our sense of competence. Or it can be a new difficulty in the same place, like an unexpected bill or illness. The common thread is that the wilderness destabilizes us and reveals the core of the identity that we’ve built up over the years.

How Long Will We Remain in the Wilderness?

Secondly, the wilderness tends to be a place that we remain in for a while—a long, long while. Returning to Moses, he tended sheep for forty years in the wilderness. He got married and had children in the wilderness. He thought he was going to die in the wilderness.

One important reason why the wilderness tends to linger is that it is most frequently where God develops our character, and character takes a significant amount of time to inculcate.

Joseph was a slave in Egypt for thirteen years before he finally became prime minister. David was an outlaw for over a decade before he became king. God’s slow and steady work on our hearts is usually measured over the course of years rather than weeks.

What Will Bring Us Out of the Wilderness?

The last and probably most peculiar aspect of the wilderness is that God never intends for it to be a dead end but always a fresh start. It was in the wilderness that God appeared to Moses in a burning bush and commanded him to set the Israelites free.

Moses replied, “Who am I that should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:11)? He responded this way because he believed that his journey was already over. The die had been cast. The race had already been forfeited. And nothing else remained except to let the ravaging desert wind take its course on his dying body.

But God said, “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12). Having deconstructed his identity and reforged his character, God was now ready to empower Moses to accomplish the impossible. The goal that Moses had attempted to accomplish forty years ago was now in reach. But it required one final act—saying, “Yes.”

Conclusion

2024 may have been your wilderness. It may have been the year you hit rock bottom, then the floor gave out. It may have been where you reached the end of yourself. But where our strength fails is where God’s begins. God has a plan for each and every one of us in 2025, but we too must be willing to say, “Yes.”

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

(Isaiah 43:19)

Our Anderson Story

Ife J. Ibitayo

Note: This article was written for the graduating UCLA Anderson class of 2024.

I’ll begin with a disclaimer: If you’ve already landed your dream job or “Everything is Awesome” is the song you wake up to each morning, you can skip this post. But for everyone else, please read on. I’ll begin this post by telling my story here at Anderson. Then I will transition into what could have been yours. Then, I will conclude with what our story can be, together.

My Story

I came to UCLA with a single goal for my MBA: launching a mission-driven entertainment company. I founded my company last summer, completed our first product by the fall, and started earning revenue with the help of my amazing capstone team by last winter. But then life happened. My health failed at the start of this year. Four months later, I’m several pounds lighter, several thousand dollars poorer, and I shuttered my dream last month.

Your Story

I don’t believe my story is as unique as it sounds. Many of you left lucrative jobs, close friends, and even home countries to study here at Anderson. You may have seen an MBA as the next rung on your climb up the corporate ladder or the opportunity to make a fresh start. But then life happened to you too.

Your experience here may have left you a little scarred, (Heck, I am too!) but I’m here to tell you that this doesn’t have to define our story going forward.

Our Story

Anderson has a motto, “Think in the next.” Just between you and me, I always thought this sounded a little strange. However, now that I’m about to leave this school, it’s starting to resonate a little more. Because I know that twenty years from now, my fellow graduates will be the leaders, C-Suite executives, and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

 When that time arrives, I don’t want us to look back on our time here and recall only the challenges we faced. I want us to remember the Andernoons we attended, the free food, free talks, and not-so-free happy hours we enjoyed, and the amazing people that make Anderson, Anderson. I have bright hope for our futures, and I’m here to tell you that you should too.

Conclusion

As I conclude, I’m challenging all of my fellow Anderson graduates to truly “think in the next.” Greater days really are yet to come even if they don’t seem to be here just yet. And know that life doesn’t have to work out perfectly to turn out beautifully.

Divine Promises and Hellish Realities

By Ife J. Ibitayo

“‘Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation…I will make your name great…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’” (Genes 12:1-4). God made Abraham this promise when he was 75 years old. If I were an old man with no offspring and no land, I think I would have taken God up on His offer too. In a few years, I’d be dead, and by then I’d birth a nation, enter the Biblical Hall of Fame, and bless the world. But God failed to tell Abraham he’d wait twenty-five years for his son to be born (Genesis 21:5) and be homeless for the rest of his life (Hebrews 11:9). If only that had been included in the disclaimer before Abraham signed the rest of his life away.

And this wasn’t a one-off oversight either. God didn’t clue Joseph into the years of hardship that awaited him before his brothers finally bowed before him. God neglected to tell Moses that by abandoning his regal palace in Egypt, he’d wind up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, twice! And David did not simply topple Goliath and ascend the throne. Two long decades in caves, backwater towns, and a foreign country awaited the shepherd boy before he finally claimed what was rightly his.

Viewing all these cases together, a disturbing pattern emerges of divine promises tempered by hellish realities. Could there be any reason for this painful dichotomy?

Divine Promises

Just like any good parent, God is intimately familiar with His children. He knows what makes us tick, what inspires us, and what worries us. If God told us (like He did Paul), “I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake,” (Acts 9:16), He wouldn’t have to waste His breath showing any of us the exit.

Church planter Tom Bennardo describes God’s selective revelation like this: “The mental image God bestows graciously draws us into privileged participation in a journey we won’t regret when it’s done, but one that we might not have been willing to enter if we had known the entire plan in advance.” Marriage, children, college, and a host of other critical life choices brim with promise. Yet they’re simultaneously filled with tears. Tremendous highs and incredible lows are tandem twins in this life. But because of a psychological phenomenon known as loss aversion, we take losses much harder than we appreciate gains. This is one key reason why God is willing to show us the glory ahead of time, but He lets the difficulties surprise us.

Hellish Realities

Further, no matter how we choose to live our life, pain is all but guaranteed. We are resident aliens in a fallen world. So broken bones and shattered dreams shouldn’t surprise us here on planet earth. Yet they do! And as they accumulate, discouragement will rear its ugly head like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. That is why God gives us promises.

“When God made His promise to Abraham, He wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear so that we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged” (Hebrews 6:13, 17, 18). Promises give us something to hold on to as we wait. Every “also ran”, romantic breakup, and failed business venture is not the end of the line, but a link on the unbroken chain to the vision God has so firmly implanted on our hearts.

Conclusion

Christian Comedian Yvonne Orji wrote a book titled Bamboozled by Jesus: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams. And I agree with the tongue in cheek sentiment of her pithy work. Like a master of legerdemain, sometimes it feels like God shows us one thing but slips us something else. But every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1:17). And this includes both the vision we see and the present we receive from His hand.

“’You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.’”

(Matthew 7:9-11)

The Business of a Dream

By Ife J. Ibitayo

Each year in America, we reserve a day in January to commemorate the life and sacrifice of Martin Luther King Jr. The gifted orator and civil rights activist’s most famous work may be his “I Have a Dream” speech. In that sixteen minute address, King powerfully challenged a multitude of bigoted adults and confidently prophesied over his little children about a glorious future he wanted them to inherit.

The Past of a Dream

A framed photograph of King raising his hand to 200,000 dreamers on that sweltering summer day rests above my mantle. It reminds me of that historic moment every time I enter my apartment. Yet therein lies the problem. The 1950s and ‘60s were not home to the Civil Rights Moment but the Civil Rights Movement. King’s dream was not realized by a moment in time but a lifetime of sacrifice and struggle.

King Solomon once said, “A dream comes with much business and painful effort” (Ecclesiastes 5:3 AMPC). Before MLK met with Lyndon B. Johnson, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, and was named “Man of the Year” by Time Magazine, he was arrested, stabbed, and bombed. Years of academic and clerical study preceded his legendary letters and sonorous speeches. King’s blood, sweat, and tears formed the sunbaked road that we now trudge upon as African Americans in an integrated nation.

The Future of a Dream

So, as we look to the pursuit of justice here today, we too must remember that dreams are founded on movements, not moments. A single day in January is not enough to honor this man who’s life was cut off before he reached middle age. Black history month in February is not enough to reconcile centuries of systematically erased heritage. We must be about justice every month–every day–if we seek to actualize the vision that Martin Luther King Jr. thundered forth from our nation’s capital sixty years ago. And there is no organization in this country more responsible for spearheading this charge than the church.

The Dreaming Church

Speaking about the American church of the 1900s, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a bone-chilling condemnation that rings eerily true today. He spoke of his “disappointment with the Christian church that appears to be more white than Christian.” And in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, he wrote, “In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, ‘Those are social issues which the gospel has nothing to do with,’ and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely otherworldly religion which made a strange distinction between bodies and souls, the sacred and the secular.” The threat that the church “will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the [current] century” has become a tragic reality for many today.

Conclusion

And so the church of Christ stands at a critical juncture. Will it settle for moments, or will it strive for movements?  Will it continue to descend into the realm of irrelevance, or will it rise to the challenge of justice? Will it remain asleep to the dream of Martin Luther King Jr., or will it wake up to its calling for this generation? Because if we want to fulfill this dream, we have a lot of business to do.

“Pursue justice, and justice alone, so that you may live, and you may possess the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”

(Deuteronomy 16:20)

https://open.spotify.com/track/0vo4Ls8OV3D85CvkXiJKlO?si=0e17afa185d04102

We’ve Never Been This Way Before

By Ife J. Ibitayo

There are rumblings of a new outbreak in China. Trump has just announced his bid for reelection. And the Golden State Warriors are on the verge of missing another playoffs. Nope, the year is not 2020 but 2022.

It’s been two long years since the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, yet in some ways, it feels like we’re right back where we started. In C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, the demon Screwtape speaks of humanity in this way: “to be in time means to change. [Humanity’s] nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation-the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.”

Even in my own life I’ve noticed this pattern. Back in 2020, I’d just started a new job, moved to a new city, and started a new phase of life. And now in 2022, I’m doing the same. Many of us may be experiencing a similar sense of déjà vu as we approach the end of this year. Our 2023 New Year Resolutions might look a lot like 2022’s. Our new job might be starting to feel a lot like our old one. We’ve spent 364 long days trudging around this mountain just to find ourselves back at square one.

Background

The Israelites experienced a similar situation thousands of years ago. After God rescued them from the clutches of Pharaoh, they traveled to the very edge of the Promised Land. The milk and honey of this paradise was practically dripping on their tongues. But in the space of a few short weeks, they suffered their first military defeat and began a forty-year detour through the harrowing wilderness (Numbers 14).

A new generation of Israelites with a new leader named Joshua arose at the end of that era. As the Lord’s people again stood poised on the edge of the Promised Land, they faced one small problem: how to get a million people across the raging Jordan River.

Keep Your Distance

Firstly, Joshua commanded the Israelites, “‘When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, you are to set out from your positions and follow it. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between yourselves and the ark. Do not go near it, so that you can see the way to go, since you have never traveled this way before’” (Joshua 3:3-4). The ark was a special chest representing the presence of the Lord amongst His people. And the Levitical priests were the special people ordained to carry it. So, the priests carrying the ark ahead of the people was a visible representation of the Lord going before them.

However, just like the Israelites back then, we may be tempted to rush ahead of God into this new year. As we shake off the dregs of winter break, we may be horrified by the mountain of work that has quietly accumulated for this coming January. But we must remember that God is our guide. Since He exists outside of time, He knows what lies ahead, and if we are humble enough to follow His lead, He’ll navigate us across our raging rivers safely.

Consecrate Yourself

Secondly, Joshua commanded the Israelites, “‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you’” (Joshua 3:8). Consecration is to make ready for the Lord. In the Old Testament, the Israelites had dozens of rules about consecration from avoiding certain foods to abstaining from sex. But the main thrust of these regulations was not about their external bodies but their inside man. They were meant to prepare their hearts for an encounter with God.

But when we find ourselves facing familiar problems with our health, our loved ones, or our job, we may want to dial down our expectations going into this new year. But as the author of Hebrews says, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). We don’t want to miss God when He passes by; we want to wait expectantly on Him.

Mark the Watershed Moments

Lastly, after Joshua and the rest of the Israelites had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord commanded them to take twelve large rocks out of the river and set them up as a memorial (Joshua 4). Grammarist defines a watershed moment as “a turning point…from which things will never be the same. It is considered momentous, though a watershed moment is often recognized in hindsight.” It’s essential to remember where we’ve been so we don’t end up back where we were. We must live our lives marking our watershed moments so that when we face our next raging river, we can confidently expect God to part it again.

Conclusion

If we follow God’s lead with a heart filled with hope, we may just see Him work wonders for us in 2023. The end of 2022 may look a lot like the beginning of 2020, but I assure you, we’ve never been this way before.

“For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.”
(Isaiah 43:19)

Taking My Timetable Too Seriously (Taking Myself Too Seriously Again Pt. 2)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

I went back to school to start a business. Boom or bust, by the time I walk out of my two-year MBA program, I will add “founder” to my resume. With such a short window to work with, time is of the essence. I am currently looking for a co-founder, and I have no idea how to find them.

During orientation, I met a fellow entrepreneurial student. Over the course of our conversation, I found out that he too had been looking for a co-founder, and he’d already found him a few days ago. He said, “With us only being here two years, every minute counts. And we’ll need every second of it to take advantage of the resources here.” In my head, I paraphrased that as, “I’m already behind!”

Walking Not Running

My instinctual reaction was to find a way to get ahead. I need to find a co-founder, create a business juggernaut, and commence a transition plan for my impending retirement all by next week, or I might never catch up! As ridiculous as this might sound, I think this mindset has become more prevalent than we may realize. Why else would the term “life hack” have so inundated popular discourse? We’re constantly trying to find ways to squeeze more useful time out of our twenty-four hour days.

But God’s pace is slower. When speaking of God’s plan for our lives, the apostle Paul said, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). And in the book Three Mile An Hour God, Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama emphasized that Jesus’ pace on earth was a walking pace because love can’t be rushed.

But why is God so freaking slow?

Timing Belongs to the LORD

This question led me to the story of Moses. Everyone knows Moses: nation deliverer, Red Sea splitter, leader, prophet, warrior, poet, and writer. But what most people don’t realize is that Moses completed all of these great acts as an old man. His journey begins when most of ours end: at the age of eighty.

For the first forty years of his life, Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s household. The book of Acts says, “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22). These two statements “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” and “was powerful in speech and action” are inseparable. Moses’ formative upbringing was inseparable from his legacy.

After this, Moses—like most of us—attempted to start his mission too early. As a middle-aged man of forty, he attempted to liberate his people (Acts 7:23). But the LORD still had much training for him to undergo. So he spent the next forty years of his life as a shepherd in the wilderness. What better way to learn how to lead a stubborn, ignorant, ungrateful people than to lead stubborn, ignorant, ungrateful sheep!

Because the LORD sees the end from the beginning, He knows what steps we need to take along the way. We can’t short circuit this process without short circuiting our destiny.

The Future Belongs to the LORD

Similarly, we don’t know what the future holds. King Solomon once said, “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). There are so many factors that go into success that we, with our limited perspective, will fail to account for: the economy, the culture, even our own mental readiness and state of well being. But God takes all of these into account. And He makes all things beautiful in their own time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Conclusion

So I have let go of my timetable; I’ve deleted my calendar; and I’ve tossed my planner into the bin. I will still plan ahead, of course, but I’m trying to learn to clutch my schedule with a looser grip. My vision may not come true according to my plan, but God has always had a better one in store.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”

(Jeremiah 29:11)

Prayer Changes Things Outside of Us (Prayer Changes Things Pt. 1)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

During my junior year of college, I went with my church on a retreat. There isn’t much that I recall about that trip, but I do remember committing to spending one hour each day in prayer.

It felt like a foolish choice at the time. Between my academic obligations and my church responsibilities, I was barely treading water. I struggled to find enough time each day to sleep, let alone surrender a whole hour to prayer. Yet somehow God provided the time during that harrowing season of life. Since then, I’ve prayed for many things both great and small, and I’ve seen God move in both cases.

Prayer Changes Lives

A few months after I started praying more, a good friend of mine was attempting to transfer into the geology department at the University of Texas at Austin. He’d already been rejected twice before. And if he didn’t get accepted this time, he was going to transfer universities. So I told him, “Why don’t we pray about it?” And by the end of that week, my friend excitedly told me that he’d been accepted into the geology apartment with a scholarship!

And about a year ago, another friend of mine was on the verge of graduation. But one of the most important people in his life was not planning on being there to see it—his father. Their core values had diverged drastically when Donald Trump was elected president, and their tenuous relationship had become so strained that my friend struggled to even visit his parents. So for a whole year, I prayed for healing in their relationship. And on the eve of my friend’s PH D. defense, his father flew into town and even stayed to help him work on his project for a couple days afterward!

Conclusion

These stories may not be the most exciting. I haven’t yet seen mountains fling themselves into the ocean. But there’s good reason Jesus emphasized asking God for things in prayer so much. He said, “Ask, and you will receive” (Matthew 7:7). “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). And “will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones who cry out to Him day and night” (Luke 18:7)?

Jesus came to earth to connect mankind to the Father. And we do so by committing our cares to Him. Maturity in Christ is not asking God for less but entrusting Him with more. And I’m trying to learn how to do that one hour at a time.

“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”

(1 Peter 5:7)

A Black Son’s Juneteenth

By Ife J. Ibitayo

I’ve been black ever since I was born. This may be obvious to you, but it wasn’t to me. I was born in the suburbs of deeply-black Detroit. Then I moved to racially diverse San Jose. Then I wrapped up my childhood in Mission, Texas, which is 80% Hispanic. I never experienced brazen racism or saw Confederate flag-waving white supremacists. Microaggressions and “can I touch your hair?” were the extent of the indignities I lived through.

So I never understood my Dad’s rules: If you wear a hoodie, the hood must be down. If you’re wearing a fitted, it must face forward. Never pocket anything in the grocery store even if you intend to pay for it. And always keep your receipts.  No Kobe earrings for my older brother. No Iverson cornrows for me. And in the midst of these perplexing rules, I remained relatively cocooned from the complex web of racial interactions that tangled around me.

Divided

But then Michael Brown—a teenager less than a year older than me—was shot in Ferguson, Missouri. And less than two years later, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. With these jarring cognitive blows, I finally began to realize the United States of America was not as united as I once believed. And I began to understand my dad’s deep-seated anguish and frustration with our country.

Black people in the United States have always lived divided lives, torn between the high ideals America stands for and the disappointing reality our nation has fallen into. America decried racism in Nazi Germany while embracing it on our own soil. America lauded Gandhi overseas but assassinated King back home. America opposed apartheid as early as the 1940s yet supported Jim Crow until the 1960s.

United

I still remember sitting with my dad a few years back, overcome by my newfound jadedness. I shared my grievances with him and expected him to say, “Son, welcome to the table.” But rather, he told me he was still proud to be an American. The United States is still the nation my father dreamed of coming to from his youth. The United States is still the nation where my father proved that blood, sweat, tears and an unremitting hunger for success can open nearly every door and shatter countless glass ceilings. And this hope, this pride is what he’s passed onto me.

So as a Juneteenth Father’s Day approaches, I celebrate all the black fathers who refused to give into cynicism and despair. I celebrate all the black fathers who stuck around, gritted their teeth, and refused to give up or give in. I celebrate all of the black fathers who poured themselves out for their nations, their companies, and their families even when no one gave them an ounce of appreciation. And most of all, I celebrate my own father. I love you, Dad.

Great Expectations

By Ife J. Ibitayo

The actor Ryan Reynolds once said, “When you have expectations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.” Reynolds is not exactly the greatest sage of our generation, but his viewpoint carries strong resonance for many, especially millennials. We millennials are the perennial pimple-faced freshmen of our era, the hormonal, awkward teenagers who never really grew up. We just transferred our angst from classrooms to boardrooms and home offices. We are jaded about politics, jaded about the economy, and jaded about God.

Dashed Expectations

Irish theologian Alister McGrath wrote that, “For many Christians, an experience of God lies at the heart of the religious dynamic. This experience may subsequently lead to theological formulations…yet these formulations are ultimately secondary to the experience that precipitated and shaped them.” In other words, our thoughts of God often stem from our experience of God, not the other way around. And one of the prevailing sentiments of God today is disappointment.

God allowed our nation to experience one of the greatest recessions in American history. He stood by as COVID-19 snuffed out 6 million precious lives. And He did nothing as Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. Many would rather live in a world without God than a God who would allow such tragedies as these.

These past several years, I’ve struggled with disappointment with God as well. I was disappointed with college, grad school, my first job, and my first love interest. I’ve spent months working myself into frenzied excitement about a promise I believed I’d received from the big man upstairs only to have my foundation collapse. I wake up lying on the cold floor surrounded by my dashed expectations and shattered dreams. I’ve spent many nights crying out to a God who is inconveniently silent when I need to hear from Him the most.

Great Expectations

In the midst of my dejection, I stumbled upon a book by one of my favorite author’s called Disappointment with God. In it, Philip Yancey wrote, “Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.” In the middle of a rainstorm, it may feel like the sun will never shine again, but we know it will—it must—because the sun is reliable. Similarly, God is trustworthy. The weeping prophet Jeremiah once said, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23). God is more dependable than the sun, and every new day we rise to affirms this truth.

Conclusion

We may be going through a disappointing season right now, and greater disappointments surely lay ahead. But we must not forget in the darkness what we proclaimed in the light. The LORD is not a disappointing God but a great one. And a great God demands great expectations.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

(1 Corinthians 2:9)

The Preceding Promise (The Genesis Archives Pt. 4)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

For Part 1, “Let There Be Light”, click here. For Part 2, “Recycling and the Image of God”, click here. For Part 3, “Naked and Unashamed”, click here.

“‘And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel’” (Genesis 3:15).

I hate making mistakes. You may want to roll your eyes sardonically and say, “Don’t we all?” But hear me out. There’s a difference between striving for perfection and needing it to feel at peace with oneself, others, and God Himself. I often struggle with the latter. A bad day on the job can haunt me for weeks, a bad conversation for months. I still vividly remember the mistakes of my youth, from careless comments to squandered gospel opportunities. I’ve piled them up over the decades, lugging them along in a spiritual trash bag as if they were my cross to carry. That is why this passage from the very beginning of the Bible resonates so deeply in my bones.

The Curse

The greater context of Genesis 3:15 is that Adam and Eve have just eaten the forbidden fruit, and God is meting out the first punishment listed in Holy Scripture. But God does not begin His punishment with Adam or Eve but the Serpent who tricked them. He curses the Serpent, “‘Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:14). Then God tells them all the promise listed in Genesis 3:15: “‘And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.’” Then the curses on Adam and Eve in childbirth and work come in verses 16 to 19. But notice that the promise precedes the curse.

The Promise

This truth lies at the heart of the gospel. The gospel is not the story of how God makes decent people into perfect saints. It’s the story of how he transforms cadavers into new creations. The Apostle Paul says in his epistle to the Ephesians, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins…But God is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)” (Ephesians 2:1,4-5) God’s response to us does not proceed from our sins. He didn’t wait to see if we’d be perfect then send Jesus to make up the difference. Rather, “Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes” (Ephesians 1:4).

Conclusion

Before you cheated on that final exam, God chose you. Before you divorced your wife, God chose you. Before you tried to commit suicide, God chose you to be holy and blameless in His sight.

As I spoke on in “Naked and Unashamed”, sin demands judgment, yet God still desires a relationship with us. And you can’t have a relationship with a dead person. So God sent His Son to die in our place. And through His death, by crushing the Serpent’s head and absorbing his fatal bite, He’s enabled us imperfect beings to be in right relationship with a perfect God.

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”

(Colossians 1:21-22)