Daily Devotion February 1--God's timing

Genesis 17: 16-17
 And I will bless her (Sarah), and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.
Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?

God had promised Abraham that He would make of him a great nation.  He promised him that he would have children.  When God didn't work at the speed Abraham and Sarah thought He should, Sarah (then Sarai) took things into her own hands and gave her handmaid unto her husband.  Hagar gave birth to Ishmael and ridiculed Sarah because she could not conceive.  But this was not God's plan.  God's plan was for Sarah to bear a son to Abraham and that would be the beginning of the nation that He had promised him.

So you can imagine how Abraham felt when God told him that Sarah WOULD indeed conceive a son.  And Abraham laughed.  If you keep reading through the chapter you will find that Sarah also laughed.  But she did conceive and gave birth to Abraham's son, Issac.  They got ahead of God's timing and that has led to much turmoil in the Middle East even today.

Now, why would Abraham not trust God's timing after all they'd been through together?  For the same reasons that you and I often try to get ahead of God's timing today.  We have an idea of what we want to happen, when we want it to happen and how we want it to happen.  Things not going according to our plans?  Then we just move ahead and decide God is not really interested in the timing anyway.  But that is so wrong.  God has everything timed out perfectly.  He sees the big picture--way beyond anything that we can see.  We can easily be caught up in the belief that we know what is best and in our impatience just make mess of things.  We need to wait and listen for God to lead--for His timing.  I heard a great thing from author Nicole Johnson today.  She said the verse tells us to "Be still and know I am God."  She said she often follows that with (paraphrasing) "Or stay busy and continue to think you are."

As we go through our day, let us remember that God's timing is perfect and if we want to be fully blessed, we need to wait for Him.