This verse is familiar to many of us but oh so hard to internalize. One of the things that this verse implies and is true about faith in general is that it involves waiting. I have been trying to patiently wait to see how God is going to work in leading me into a ministry where I am able to use the gifts He has given to me. I must confess that in trying to be patient I have felt myself losing hope and feeling disconnected from the Lord. Last week I found myself crying out to God and asking, "How long, Lord?" At the time I was sitting in our den and looking out our sliding glass window. The Lord drew my attention to a bird house that we have attached to one of the poles on our deck. The house is currently occupied by a pair of nesting house wrens. I watched the female leave the house for a few minutes and then come back and enter inside. I had just finished reading a devotional from the book "Streams in the Desert" which emphasized how God is at work even when we can't see what He's doing in the process. The writer of the meditation states, "When does He work? He works now. We act as if God does not immediately accept our trust in Him and thereby delays accomplishing what we ask Him to do. We fail to understand that "He works" as we commit "He works" now! Praise Him for the fact that this is true." Returning to my observation of the bird house I felt the Lord impressing upon my heart a question. "Can I see inside of that bird house?" The answer is an obvious "no." Yet the Lord reminded me that there is a work going on inside. It is an unseen work as the birds prepare to bring forth new life. Like the verse in Hebrews 11:1, this pair of house wrens is "sure of what they hope for." After preparing the nest they know the eggs will be laid and they are "certain of what they do not see" in that from those eggs baby birds will emerge. I share that expectation with the house wrens. Even though I cannot see what they are doing inside of that bird house, I anticipate that those eggs will be laid, hatched, and when they are old enough the baby birds will fly off. The Lord pointed out that this is a similar process that I am experiencing. He is working in a way unseen to my eyes that in the end will bring forth something new in me and for me. Father God is "preparing the nest" so to speak so I will have a place to develop and come forth into a new environment. The verse in Hebrews 11:1 is yet another reminder of the need to commit to the work that God is already doing and like those house wrens to wait with anticipation for what is yet to come. The process is not always easy and there is much work to be done beforehand but in the end God is faithful. The great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon puts it this way,"The Lord will follow through on His covenant promises. Whatever He takes and holds in His hand He will accomplish. Therefore His past mercies are guarantees for the future, and worthy reasons for continuing to cry out to Him."
Praise the Lord!
Pastor Sheree
"I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills His purpose for me." (Psalm 57:2)
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