I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.
Exodus 23:28-30NIV
Last week I talked about how my cat, Jester, doesn’t just like to have enough food in his bowl—he likes to have plenty! And the same can be true with us and God, we don’t want him to give us just enough—we want plenty! But what happens when we ask him for plenty and aren’t ready to handle His bounty?
In Exodus 23:29 God is talking about bringing the Israelites into a new land and He promises that He will drive the people of that land out before the Israelites and the entire land will be theirs, but He will not drive them out all at once. He gave it to them little by little, testing them, seeing what they could handle, and then slowly releasing more to them. How often do we doubt His promises to provide for our needs and to bless us abundantly. I can think of times in my life when I have wanted to take matters into my own hands to try to produce plenty on my own rather than waiting on Him and His timing. I think we have all done this and, most likely, will do it again!
Remember Abraham, the father of many nations? Abraham desperately wanted an heir and God told Abraham his prayer had been heard and that God would turn Abraham’s descendants into a great nation. Then what? Well, nothing. Time went on, years went by, and Abraham and his wife Sarah remained childless. So Sarah did what many of us would do—she took matters into her own hands and told Abraham to go into her maid, Hagar, so that she might conceive a child. Sarah’s plan seemed to work—until it didn’t. Abraham and Hagar’s child, Ishmael, brewed bitterness and hatred in Sarah. The Bible says of Ishmael, “He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man. And every man’s hand against him. “ (Gen. 16:12). Many years later, God came through on his promise to Abraham and Sarah. Sarah conceived, had her baby, Isaac, and the situation got worse. It became so bad that Sarah eventually sent Hagar away to live apart from them. To this day the descendants of the sons of Abraham still war against each other.
God had waited to bless Abraham and Sarah with children. We don’t know why. We don’t know if there was a lesson God was trying to teach them (patience?) or why God tested them in this way. But they stepped out of His will. They wanted to bypass trust and growing pains and decided to try to self-insure that there would be descendants. And they really messed things up.
Have you ever done some version of this? Have you asked for more responsibility than you were equipped to handle? Did you ask for more financial wealth when you were still struggling to manage what you had already been entrusted with? Have you ever tried to step ahead of His plan? What was the outcome?
We have just started a new year, one in which we no doubt have lots of ideas about how things should go. But before we jump headlong into all the things we want to do, and things we want to ask God to bless us with, let’s pause for a moment and reflect: How did we steward the blessings He gave us last year? What did we start and not finish? To what did He call us already that we are not being faithful to?
He is a wise father, He will give us what we are meant to carry and when we are meant to carry it. Not before, and not after. We don’t have to worry about his plan, but we do have to trust and wait on Him.
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