“And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.”

The author has given us God’s point of view on the promise. God is faithful and will do what He said He would do. To make sure Abraham understood God insured His promise with an oath. He swore by Himself. That was real security.

Still, Abraham could have given up. He waited so long. Way past the time when any logical expectation of the promise could still be considered. There is a great lesson here for us if we will consider it. All too often, we live with an expectation of instant gratification. So many things in our day to day world do work in near-instant. Our attention span is down to seconds rather than minutes or hours. Imagine our world being told to wait forty or fifty years for a special thing to happen. We would forget about it within the hour and be totally surprised when it did come about.

We pray at 8:00 in the morning and then give God thirty or forty minutes to produce. By the end of the hour, we are finished with that approach. If God doesn’t return our call in moments, we assume He isn’t going to. We are immediately off to try something else.

Task for Today: Learn patience. Unless you are strangely unique in the modern-day culture you will have to learn it. By adulthood, it is unlikely you have mastered patience in a deliver on-demand society. Teach yourself to wait. Relax your mind and body and wait. Sit quietly in the soft light and wait. Come before the presence of God and bow down to Him and wait.