Genesis 15:13–16 Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. (As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.”
Sometimes the waiting is hard because of the season you are placed in. It could be a lifetime of misery for you—or even generations of it. Crazy to think about, right? It depends on your attitude toward your circumstances. But it might be hard. The crazy thing is not only does your attitude toward life, your relationship with God, or your vulnerability with those around you affect your family, friends, city, or country, it might even be God’s grace being poured out on another situation, people, or country you have nothing to do with.
Four generations—four hundred years of slavery for his people—for the Amorites (an ungodly enemy nation to them) to have time to recognize God and repent, because God loved them that much. It does not specifically mention other reasons. But if you read the stories from the last chapters of Genesis into Exodus, the stories show what else came of the Israelite people being in Egypt—from Joseph and his direct family to them growing into a whole nation. God showed himself as the only real, fully powerful, and true creator of the heavens and earth to the whole world through his people being in Egypt. All the while, God’s covenant people for generations cried out for mercy, holding on to the promises he had made to them. God heard and answered, but it had to be in his timing, or he would not have given the Amorites or Egypt the chance he wanted to give them, nor carried it out in the way he chose was best.
Exodus 3:7–9 Then the Lord told him, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So, I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live. Look! The cry of the people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse them.”
How hard it is to feel as though God is not seeing, hearing, or answering your prayers. This is me being completely vulnerable about my short‑sighted, selfish, controlling, and ungrateful attitude I had this past fall and spring. I could see God working in so many ways in my life and in the lives of those around me. He was providing in so many ways—from food, to clothes, to money. I could even see places God was healing my heart and changing my perspective. Yet I was angry because where I was physically and spiritually was hard. I was impatient for the things I was not seeing happen, the understanding I didn’t have, and the strength I believed I needed. I was demanding God for it now. I was angry because it felt like he was dealing love in a way I couldn’t receive, and I didn’t care to receive it in that way at the moment. I had no contentment in him.
This is very much the same attitude the Israelites had in their wilderness wandering—even after they were rescued and God continually provided in visible ways to guide, provide, and teach them. I’m saying all this to say: we don’t know what the story in the Scriptures didn’t say. It could be that God showed his love and spoke to his people throughout those four hundred years. In fact, he probably did. Because even when God is silent, he is still acting, and that is shown throughout the Scriptures and paired together with history.
But up close and personal, in the thick of it, you don’t always see what God is doing or saying. Or even if you do, your heart isn’t right to receive it. Feelings mixed with the lies of Satan make you believe something that isn’t true or make you deaf and blind to the things God is doing if you choose to believe him over God. But throughout this time—with whatever feelings they were feeling or things they were seeing or not seeing God do—one can only imagine how four hundred years of slavery could feel so unfair, so unloving, or so unkind. You can see how one could be angry with God. What a long span of waiting.
But through God’s eye view, looking back at the big picture, it all shows his love, care, mercy, grace, and power—not only to the Amorites or to Egypt or to the world, but also to his covenant people. As he was building his kingdom in his covenant people, he was teaching them what faith looked like, what his kingdom culture versus the world looked like, and how to truly display his glory not just in one person’s life (though it is that too) but throughout many generations for thousands of years, not just four hundred. How crazy it will be to look back in heaven, zooming out from our lives to see what God was doing in our family, generations, country, or those around us—and how his glory was displayed and what part we played in the big picture.
But the waiting is hard. Life is difficult. Our heart attitudes aren’t always correct. And feelings are strong and valid. The enemy does speak lies to make God seem unjust and like he is hiding or keeping good things from us (the same lies from the garden of Eden in Genesis). These are the very same lies I fell for last fall and spring. God and his mind are so much bigger than our one story in the sea of millions in this world. As he is outside of time and weaving our story perfectly with the millions into one main story that is his for his glory alone, we cannot even fathom our own life. But yet he loves us, cares about us, and gives us worth and purpose.
Isaiah 55:8–9 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Psalm 84:11b The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.
Psalm 139:17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!
Isaiah 49:15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”
Isaiah 30:2 For without consulting me, you have gone down to Egypt for help. You have put your trust in Pharaoh’s protection. You have tried to hide in his shade.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Romans 8:17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
In short, you have no control. As much as this is your life, the story is much greater than you. The truth of his character does not depend on your circumstances or your feelings or where you don’t see him. He still loves you, and you are still his precious child. So your faith or contentment should not depend on those things. Thank God for the things he is doing. Trust that he is still good. Faith is what you put in the gap when you see no evidence he is still good or when you can’t trust him. Faith is saying, “I believe, in spite of my small vision, that his bigger plan is amazing.” Faith is saying, “Do what you will with me for the sake of his plans and heart for this world.” He does hear you and will answer in his timing and his way, which is always best. Waiting is hard—but God.
What is getting in the way of surrendering to God’s character and will? Is it fear of losing control? Is it not being willing to let go of what you think is best and obey? Is it a sense of safety that you don’t feel with God because his plans look scary or have been? Is it not believing that God is enough on his own without X, Y, or Z? What are you letting get in the way of being content with only him in spite of the waiting? Ask yourself what is behind the things you are holding on to or the feelings you are feeling.
I will leave you with this story:
This morning I was sharing the things I have been learning with a friend, and God took me back to a picture he gave me in the spring. God had taken me to the edge of the cliff and was telling me I needed to step out and fall to ever be able to soar on wings like eagles, like the verse says. But this time when I saw it, he showed me that I had stepped—but that I was clinging to anything I could on the edge of the cliff. Still not fully trusting, not fully able to surrender.
Have a great week, everyone.
