Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless. "I will establish My covenant between Me and you, And I will multiply you exceedingly." Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,... (Genesis 17:1-3 NASB)
Chapter 16 finishes by telling me that Abram was eighty-six years old. Now, thirteen years later, God shows up again for a chat. Thirteen years!? I'm not confident that my faith would hold out a full decade while I'm heading through my eighties and nineties waiting for God to fulfill His promise. He made it clear to Hagar that Ishmael wasn't the "one", so...where is he? And finishing out his nineties isn't where Abram wants to be when he has a child. He probably looks back on the early years with Ishmael and would rather not repeat it, especially not now.
Well, while I'm very sure about the time, but the Scriptures also make it very clear that Abraham's "nineties" are not like what people endure or live like in their nineties now. There's strength and "iron" in Abraham that is lacking in people of this modern time. I believe the passage and others in Scripture make a good case for Abraham wanting Ishmael to be the promised one because he loved the boy very much. While Abraham may complain that he's too old to have kids, later passages are not implying that's not the case, they state it plainly (Genesis 25:1-4). So, his complaint had to do with something else.
So, I may not want to wait a decade through my nineties for a word from my Master, but can I really use the age as an excuse? What about through my forties? What about through my thirties or fifties? The age really isn't the issue, it's the time. Am I so patient that I can wait for a word from my Master? Until then what do I do? I live. Really the only option while waiting is living out the life called to. What was the last thing my Master asked me to do? Wait, worship and walk before Him, sort of like what He commanded of Abraham here.
Even through the good strong years of my life (about 3 years right after I got out of the Army, after that, well...) I don't think that I would have been patient to wait for the next word from my Master. I tend to get bored, get into trouble, and it begins to become all about me. Really, it isn't even "patience" as much as steadfast faith that is the real issue. Do I have the faith to stay the course He has laid out even when I haven't heard from Him in the last nine or thirteen years?
One of the common complaints I use for why I left ministry is that I never had a mentor to help me through the rough spots and avoid pitfalls. But as I read this passage, where was Abraham's mentor? The thing is, I really have no excuse where I can blame another, or blame the circumstances, or the "people" or anyone else. I made the choice I made at the time believing it was the right thing to do. It wasn't even a choice I made thinking that it was in my best interest. What went through my head wasn't self-centered, it was removing myself from the place of distraction so God could get directly at them. What I didn't understand is that God really doesn't choose to work that way. The church failed anyway, families from there caused other churches to fail, ran into sin obliterating marriages, and disintegrating families. I'm not sure I could have stopped that, but I certainly didn't succeed in enabling them to hear God better.
Rather than ask whether or not I should have waited it out, what I need to ask now is what am I waiting for? Is there a promise that my Master has given me that I'm holding out for? Unfortunately, I'm not sure. I suppose I'm really just waiting for the next thing, trying to be open to what that might be. I believe I'm in a much better place to hear my Master than I have been before. So, I suppose that, since my last marching orders were wait, worship, and walk before Him, I'll do that. Since it's Sunday, the middle one should be easy, but Monday's coming...
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