Tag: promise

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)

New Problems, Same God

By Ife J. Ibitayo

Last Monday, I found myself perched uncomfortably on a hospital bed. A woman in a black dress strutted in and took a seat across the room from me. She glanced my way and casually said, “You might have had a heart attack.”

With a sheet of paper in my hands with obscure lines traced across it and a sticky note referral to a cardiologist, I realized I was back in my car. I gripped my steering wheel, fighting back tears. But the dam broke, and I wept bitterly, “Not again! Lord, please let this not be happening all over again!” I’ve had petty problems and big problems, but now it seems that every new year I collide face-first with a new problem. But then God brought to my mind a Bible story I’d read just that morning.

Old Problems

King Hezekiah was one of Judah’s last good kings. He demolished idols and defeated nations leading to spiritual and economic revival. But during his reign, the mighty Assyrian empire ransacked the northern kingdom of Israel and set its sights on the southern kingdom of Judah. It captured every fortified city in Judah besides Jerusalem (Isaiah 36). And on top of all that, King Hezekiah fell fatally ill and was told by the prophet Isaiah that he was going to die (Isaiah 38:1). In the middle of his grief, King Hezekiah made a passionate plea to the LORD for his life, and God sent Isaiah back to the king with this message, “‘I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life’” (Isaiah 38:5).

This was the verse that God brought to my mind. He told me sitting there in my car crying in that hospital driveway, “‘I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.’”

Same God

Later that day, I made a call to the cardiologist, and they were able to slot me in for a visit at the end of the week (a mini-miracle in and of itself). And by Friday’s end, I was walking out of another hospital, but this time I had a smile on my face and a fresh lease on life. The same God who was faithful to King Hezekiah has been faithful to me.

God taught me that His promises don’t come with an expiration date. They never go bad. The same promises He made thousands of years ago, He is faithful to keep today. Because God doesn’t change, neither do His promises.

“‘The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.'”

(Isaiah 40:8)

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)

Impossible Perfection, Possible Generosity

By Ife J. Ibitayo

I don’t find generosity as easy as I thought I would. We’re in the middle of a pandemic and still reeling from the greatest drop in national GDP since the Great Depression. And here I sit, a young, gainfully employed bachelor without any meaningful dependents.

I live in one of the top ten wealthiest counties in the United States in the richest country in the world. While families have been scraping by to put food on the table, I’ve been eating out every week. While unemployed millions struggled to pay enough their bills to make it to the end of last year, I bought a new laptop for Christmas. What is wrong with me? But let’s be real, my story is not all that unique. What is wrong with us?

Impossible Perfection

I’ve been thinking about the story of the rich young ruler a lot recently. There once was a young man with power, money, and authority who approached Jesus. He had lived his entire life righteously, and yet he still felt he was lacking something. Jesus knew what that something was, so He told the young man, “‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me’” (Matthew 19:21).

I think this is one of the hardest sayings in the Bible. We’ve spent decades of our lives earning our keep. We love our house in the suburbs with our blue Ford F-150 and our new Apple iPhone. We relish waking up in our own bed, drinking our morning coffee from our special mug, and typing away on our precious laptop. Yet we forget our impoverished neighbor. We pass by on the other side of the road as they shiver their nights away beside the Walmart down the street.

This is not so much a call to action as a plea for introspection. Why can’t I sell my phone, my car, or even my house to love my neighbor? Is this too high an ask for anyone? I’m clearly being unrealistic, aren’t I? Yet this is exactly how the early church lived. Acts 4:34 says. “There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them.”

Possible Generosity

One of the most quoted verses of the Bible is Matthew 19:26, “‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” Unfortunately, the context of this verse is often lost as well. Notice that this saying is only five verses after the story of the rich young ruler. Upon hearing the steep cost of perfection, the young man left in great sadness. Then Jesus declared how impossible it was for the rich like you and I to enter into heaven. But when the disciples asked who then could be saved, Jesus replied with this promise.

In my own strength, I can only close my fists tighter and tighter, no matter how hard I try to open them. But God is love, and if I surrender myself and my riches to Him, then I have a sliver of a chance of loving others the same way He does.

“Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life.”

(2 Timothy 6:17-19)

Something Out of Nothing (Life in Waiting Pt. 2)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

In my post “Almost But Not Yet”, I mentioned the faith of Abraham, the father of the Israelites. He left his family and homeland based on the word of a foreign god. The LORD promised that the son he didn’t have would inherit a land he didn’t know about! The apostle Paul speaks about the significance of Abraham’s faith in the book of Romans:

Something

“The scriptures say God told him, ‘have made you the father of many nations.’ This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing” (Romans 4:17).

First and foremost, Paul emphasized the nature of God. When someone makes a promise to us, whether it be season tickets to our favorite sports team or a job at an exciting startup, we stake the value of that promise on the character of that person. Are they a conman? Or are they trustworthy? Abraham rested his faith on the God of Adam: the Creator who formed valuable life out of worthless dirt (Genesis 2:7), the God who regularly makes something out of nothing.

Nothing

But the seeming flip side of faith is cold, hard reality. In Romans 4:19, apostle Paul said, “Abraham faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.” One hundred-year-old men don’t father children, and ninety-year-old women don’t become pregnant. With similarly daunting truths that stand against the promises God has spoken to us, how can we square faith with reality?

Someone

Paul concluded that Abraham was “fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised” (Romans 4:21). Abraham understood the unlikeliness of God’s promise but knew that God is greater than likelihood, probability, and even possibility. The God he served was a miracle-working, promise-keeping God, and He still is today.

Conclusion

God’s promises anchor us in the heavenly realm of healings, miracles, and resurrection power when everything else in the world tries to steer us elsewhere. We can choose to cling on to our God for one more day—trusting that He’ll again make something out of nothing, or we can accept that nothing will remain nothing forever.

“Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.”

(Hebrews 10:13)

Hope Deferred (Time & Timing Part 2)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

For Part 1 on “Living in the Present”, click here.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12a NIV). The truth of this proverb resonates deep within me. I’ve waited for sicknesses to be healed, relationships to be redeemed, and dreams to be realized. Some of these have come to pass, but all too many are still waiting in the wings. This season of waiting has given me an opportunity to reflect on the stages of waiting I’ve experienced with my writing.

Hope Deferred

I’ve written stories, poems, and essays throughout my life. I’ve always had a bit of a knack for stringing words together. But it wasn’t until I reached college that I became serious about writing. I transitioned from a person who writes “seasonally” to a consistent writer.

I still remember the thrill of sending out my first short story, “An Oculus for An Oculus”, to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. With unbridled hope and unrealistic optimism, I mailed my piece off and excitedly looked forward to securing my first publication.

A month later, I received my first rejection. I was a bit discouraged, but I shook it off and sent out my story again, and again, and again. Soon I found I had submitted my story everywhere under the sun and then some, but I had turned up empty handed.

I convinced myself that it must have been just that story. I was a new writer after all, so I had a lot to learn. So I wrote more stories, sent them out, and received yet more rejections. No matter how hard I tried or how much I wrote, I could never break through.

Hope Fulfilled

My faith went through stages. It began with zealous prayer and great expectation. Then it transitioned into bargaining. I promised God I’d give Him the proceeds from my first publication, then the first $100 bucks I made from my writing. Then it degraded to tearful pleading as my hope sunk into the morass of disappointment.

I nearly gave up several times along the journey. Disillusionment discouraged me from wasting any more time writing. But a timely word from my parents or an encouraging personal rejection such as this one—”I see potential in your writing (which is why I pulled this one out of the slush pile to read myself instead of assigning it to an associate editor and why I provided some feedback) so please keep writing and keep submitting! I suspect you will have pro sales under your belt by the time we reopen next year.”—gave me the nudge I needed to try “just one more time.”

After seven years, over a dozen polished pieces, and hundreds of letters of rejection, I am finally published! I feel no shame saying that tears came to my eyes when I received it. Like Proverbs 13:12 goes on to say, “a dream fulfilled is a tree of life”, and this accomplishment has brought me much needed comfort and encouragement.

Conclusion

Now I’ve spent this article talking about my writing. Although it is an important passion to me, it may not be nearly as important to you as your health, finances, or your relationships. But the same principle applies.

You too probably have dreams that have been deferred far longer than you ever imagined. You might have even given up on them. But we must be careful to not interpret God’s “wait” as a “no”. If God asks us to wait on Him, to tarry long in His presence, we must not give up. God always keeps His promises. It might just take a little longer than we expected.

“‘And will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? I tell you, He will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?’”

(Luke 18:7-8 NIV)

To read my first publication, “Untraditional”, click here to purchase a copy of Andromeda Spaceways Magazine Issue #81.