It Only Feels Like Forever

Remember the first day of school your senior year in high school? Remember how excited you were because this was it, your last year of high school? Remember how as each day passed, May seemed to move farther and farther away? It felt like graduation day would never come? Why? Because you still had to go to school every day and work to finish your classes. The promise of a diploma loomed in front of you and you wanted it, but you had to wait until all your work was completed as well as wait for the day set aside for graduation.
     I suppose that's how Abraham must have felt as he waited for Isaac to be born. As each day passed and still no news of a pregnancy had to be trying for Abraham, yet Hebrews commends him for remaining faithful until Isaac's birth. Twenty-some years passed between the promise and the fulfillment, how did Abraham do it? I suspect it was much like how we got through our senior year, one day at a time...focusing on what tasks had to be accomplished that day and getting them done. Many times throughout my senior year, my teachers encouraged us to keep working by reminding us the reward was just ahead if we stayed focused and faithful. I remember on graduation day looking back over my senior year with my diploma in hand and thinking, "wow, that year went by so fast, how did that happen?" I guarantee the days themselves did not feel like they were flying by, but looking back, it seemed like we hardly had to wait at all to get our diplomas.
     Abraham too, had to stay focused each and every day on the tasks God gave. He had to live his life in those twenty-some years. It probably seemed to him that God was taking forever to fulfill his promise, but I bet, on the day he held his newborn son in his hands, those twenty-some years felt like nothing, it only felt like God took forever.
     There are days, many of them, when it feels like God is taking His time...lots of it...to fulfill His promise for me. What I have learned from Abraham in Hebrews 6 is that while the time may feel like it is dragging by, I need to stay focused on what God wants me to accomplish day by day. The promise will be fulfilled, but I have to live and work in the days from now until then. And I know that on the day that my kids meet Tebow, I too, will look back on my journey and realize it only seemed to be taking forever. Really, though, they will be nothing compared to the joy of seeing God fulfill His promise in His way and in His time.